Brown and Blue-Al's POV
by rainbowsXunicorns
Summary: It's another boring year of high school for Al and his friends. He isn't expecting much from sophomore year until he meets the new girl, Beatrice Prior. Modern day/high school AU
1. First Day Back

**Hi guys! It's Allison. Short intro: this is Al's POV of Brown and Blue. I'm really excited about this and I hope you like it. You don't need to read Tris's POV first if you haven't already. If you haven't, just know I do not intend to write Fourtris in this story.**

 **Okay... Onward!**

Chapter One

I pull out the chair at the table in the small dining room in our house. It's a good thing I'm an only child or else someone wouldn't be able to sit at the table.

I'm not nervous for first days of school anymore, but I'm just not hungry. Mom sits at the table on my left, sipping her coffee as she watches the news on the TV in the other room. Dad is filling his plate with as much food he can fit without it spilling over. I drink some water and nibble on a pop tart.

"Good morning Albert," Dad says. "Did you sleep well?"

I shrug casually. I didn't sleep any differently than I usually do on the day before school starts. "Yeah," I say.

"Are you excited?" Mom asks. I smile and tell her I am, though I don't know what's so exciting about sophomore year of high school.

"Do you have any classes with your friends?" she continues. Her eyes are glued on the screen, but she sounds interested in my answers.

"A few," I say. She won't question which ones. I just hope I won't have to deal with Peter Hayes and his friends.

"That's good," she says. "You should get ready to go. I'll drop you off." I inhale as she finishes her sentence and hold my breath for as long as it takes to make my lungs feel like they're going to explode. I exhale carefully.

"Thanks," I say. "But that's okay Mom. I can walk."

"I want to see you off to your first day of school." I want to tell her I'm not five anymore, but that's not very nice. I don't like being mean to people. I'd rather let an incredible chance for me to throw shade at someone pass than to possible hurt their feelings. Though with the kids at school I don't think I'd hurt their feelings more than I would their egos, which would result in them hurting my face.

I smile at my mother anyway. She means well and I love her, but no one else's mom drives them to school around here. Out of my friend group at least. Christina lives close enough by to walk, the others take the bus usually. Or they can drive themselves. I'm still embarrassed to tell my friends, for almost being seventeen, I don't have my driver's permit.

Five minutes before we have to go, I make sure everything is in my backpack that I need. Binder, pens, pencils, erasers, sharpener, schedule, lunch, and I have my phone in my jeans pocket.

On the drive to school, which is usually quiet when my mom drives me, my mother is telling me not to worry, have a good day, text her, the same spiel I hear every year. Most kids would find it annoying, but I think it's nice. She cares a lot about me. As we pull up to the front of the school, she smiles and kisses my cheek.

"Love you, baby," she says. "Have a good day."

"You too Mom," I say. I open the door and step out. Before I shut the door she calls out to me, "did you remember to go to the bathroom?" My face floods with heat. I nod and shut the car door. Sometimes I wonder why I am embarrassed having my mom drop me off and then I remember she does things like that.

I sigh and walk into the halls of Lake View High. I am already developing senioritis. The halls are cramped and I can barely make my way to the designated meeting spot where me and my friends meet at the beginning of every year. I am the first one here. This happened last year and I stood there awkwardly until Lynn showed up and then we both stood there awkwardly until Marlene showed up.

I decide to take out my phone while I wait this year just so nobody thinks I'm some quiet loser with no friends. I don't really care what they think, or so I like to tell myself, but I can't help it. It's a huge part of my anxiety.

After ten minutes of waiting one of my friends appears from the right side of the hall. Christina runs forward and hugs me.

"How are you?" she says. "I haven't seen you in weeks."

"I'm good," I say. "How are you? How was your trip to California?"

"It was fun!" Then she launches into the stories of her family vacation. Her and her sister wanted to go to Hollywood to meet celebrities, but her mom said that wasn't a 'family trip' so they went to a small town.

"The population was less than Forks, Washington," she says. I can't help but laugh. Forks is a small town from what I know. Chris made me watch all the movies with her one weekend, so I know a lot of random facts. I never told anyone.

Finally the others begin to appear and the conversations range from Christina's trip to Uriah shooting a muffin off Marlene's head one day when they were bored. This caught everyone's attention.

"They were blanks," Uriah explains. "I wouldn't risk shooting her in the head." Good thing I was visiting my grandma over that weekend.

The warning bell rings and the students start floundering in the halls to get to class. They must be freshman or new kids since the rest of us know how the classes work around here. We stand around for another minute or two before we head off to our own classes.

My first class is science. Yuck. I hope we don't have to dissect anything this year. I nearly passed out when we cut that dead frog's tongue out in middle school. Poor Danielle Poehler had to do it for me.

When I get to class, we spend the entire time talking about what we will doing this year. I don't want to do the science fair in March, but at least there won't be any dissection. Though science fair doesn't hold good memories for me either.

If I ever become a biology teacher, I could never make my students dissect things.

Science passes as quickly as one might expect for a first day. The second class I have is being a teacher's assistant for Mr. Kang's math class. Ugh. I don't really have anything against Mr. Kang it's just I have something against math. Math itself. I never liked math, I always fell asleep during math. The only thing that keeps me awake is knowing lunch will be soon and that I get to spend my time talking to Uriah this period. At least I don't have to do any actual work.

Math runs the same amount of time as biology, but it feels like it is an hour longer. Maybe I can find a different class to TA for. I really don't like math.

The bell rings at eleven twenty five and everyone bolts out of the class, throwing their exit slips on the table on the way out. I take a moment to straighten them nicely before walking to lunch with Uriah.

The cafeteria is rather crowded, but we find a table with just enough seats for everyone. And because we are allowed off campus lunch, not everyone buying lunch in the cafeteria stays in the cafeteria. After we sit down Marlene and Lynn are close to follow, then Christina and then Will. Everyone starts our usual banter that we always carry throughout lunch.

I am about to fall asleep now, but a girl walks over to the table and instantly I am wide awake. She wears her blonde hair pulled away from her face and tucked behind her ears. Her blue eyes are bright and alert. She keeps her gaze on Christina, so she must know her from some class. She wears a gray tee shirt with a black sweater and jeans. Her backpack is slung over one shoulder and her hands are stuffed in her pockets. I want to smile at her, but I don't know if I can. I have never seen someone so beautiful.

"Guys," Christina says. "This is Beatrice. She's new here." Everyone else looks at her, most of us smiling. In fact the only one who isn't is Lynn, but she doesn't like many people.

"This is Uriah, Marlene, Lynn, and Al," Will says. I open my mouth slightly to say hello, but Marlene and Uriah beat me to it.

"Where are you from?" Marlene asks.

"I'm from Milwaukee," she replies. Her voice is quiet and nervous. I don't blame her for being anxious at a new school.

"That's not far from here," Uriah says. "Do you have siblings?" she nods. How did he jump topics so quickly?

"I have an older brother," she says.

"Does he go to school here?" Marlene wonders. She nods again. So she's shy, too. I think that's endearing.

"I have an older brother too," Uriah adds. "Lynn has an older sister, and so does Will." She nods a third time.

"How's your first day so far?" I ask quietly. That's not really what I wanted the first thing I said to her to be, but it's an icebreaker and I don't know what else to say.

"I guess the first day of school here is the same as it is everywhere. You sit and listen to teachers talk for ninety minutes and try not to fall asleep." Christina begins choking on a crouton. I should offer her a drink or something, but I'm too distracted by the new girl's smile. Beatrice.

I cannot afford to take my phone out during history with Ms. Matthews, but I can take my phone out during Spanish. I sit in the back and we aren't doing anything today. The name-her name-plagued my mind all afternoon. Not many people are named Beatrice anymore. I decide to look up the definition. The first thing in my notifications is five texts from my mom. I quickly shoot her one back.

Sorry Mom. I've been busy with classes

Ok have a good afternoon, she texts back. I smile to myself. My mom can flip moods like a switch, especially in her texts.

The meaning of the name Beatrice is, or meanings (I found many answers), bringer of joy as well as she who makes happy and blessed woman.

Either way I think it's safe to say she's going to bring me a lot of joy over the year. She already has from thirty minutes of school.


	2. My Favorite Color is Blue

Chapter Two

My alarm beeps at me and I ignore it the first five times. I bury my head under the pillow until my mom yells at me from the hall to get out of bed. I groan and toss the blankets off myself before I get too comfortable.

I have a half hour before I have to leave for school. I take a quick shower and get dressed in my standard black jeans and white T-shirt. I hurry downstairs and grab a couple granola bars.

"That's all you're going to eat?" Mom says.

"Not hungry," I reply. Mom shoots me a disapproving look, but I ignore it. She always does this when I don't eat enough.

"Do you want me to take you to school today?" Mom asks.

"I'm okay, Mom," I say. "I can walk. It's not a big deal." She sighs and takes a sip of coffee before standing from the table and grabbing her keys.

"Then you should have left fifteen minutes ago," she responds. "Come on, let's go."

"So why did you ask?" I say as she hurries out the door.

"Have a good day," Dad says in the same time he has every morning for the past fifteen years.

"Thanks," I say. "You too."

The drive to school isn't as quiet like it always has been. Mom asks me about my classes today, if I'm excited for them. I tell her I am even though I don't know if that's really true. It could be if I wasn't naturally pessimistic.

"Did you have classes with anyone interesting?" I am about to tell her that I have known most of these kids since I was five, but there's no use being sarcastic. She doesn't like it. Besides, I that's not true either.

"Yeah," I say. "Her name is Beatrice. She's new." A sly smile grows on her lips. She glances at me briefly before refocusing on the road ahead of her.

"What's she like?"

"She's..." I can't think of any words to describe her. It doesn't help I only spent lunch with her. Luckily we have some classes together today, so I'll be able to get to know her better. "She's nice. Quiet... she seems friendly."

"Is she pretty?" Mom says in a sing-song voice.

"Mom!" I say.

"Just a question," she said defensively. Then she looks at me with a smile so wide I can see almost all her teeth.

I sigh. "Yeah. She's really pretty."

"Prettier than Christina?" I roll my eyes. When we were kids, Christina would come over a lot and I think my mother thought I had a crush on her, which wasn't true.

"Yes she's prettier than Christina." Aaaaand those words just left my mouth. Now she's going to give me a hard time about thinking the new girl is pretty.

"Do you have any classes with her today?"

"Yeah," I say shyly.

We have pulled up to the school just as the first bell rings. I have literally been saved by the bell.

"Good luck!" I sigh again and hop out of the car.

I make my way through the hallways to creative writing. It's a new class, but I heard it supposed to be quiet. That's good for me. I hate public speaking.

The classroom is in between the woman's bathroom and the choir room. The music drifting from that room is calming, but I see where it will get annoying later if everyone keeps screeching. All that's playing is the piano at the moment.

When I walk in, I see the majority of the room is already filled. Beatrice sits at one of the tables and gets her materials out of her backpack and sets them on the desk in an organized manner. Her notebook is directly in front of her and her pencil is to the right of the notebook and the eraser is above the pencil.

I smile and sit down next to her. I recognize some of the other students spread around the classroom. Zeke and Shauna I have met personally because of Uriah and Lynn. I have heard of Tobias Eaton since I will have his dad as my English teacher later in the day.

"How are you?" I ask Beatrice nervously. She looks up and smiles.

"Fine," she says. "How are you?" I return her smile involuntarily. I don't know how I can't smile with her around. It's odd to me. No one has ever made me act like this before.

"I'm well," I say. "Uh... how were your classes yesterday?"

"They were fine," she says. "Ms. Matthews seems intimidating, a little."

"Yeah." I chuckle anxiously. "Just stay on her good side."

"Peter Hayes too?"

"Peter Hayes doesn't have a good side," I tell her with a smile. "If he targets you, that's it. You're donezo." She laughs a bit. I hope she gets my Parks and Rec references otherwise our relationship might be awkward.

The bell rings a minute later and our teacher stands in front of the class.

"Hello!" a woman says. "How is everyone today? Welcome to creative writing! I'm Ms. Reyes."

For the first few minutes Ms. Reyes explains the gist of the class. She tells us what we'll be doing all year, including a field trip in May. She is very talkative and very happy. We clash there. Hopefully I don't have to read my writing out loud since I have terrible anxiety and one negative comment will trigger my depression, not that everyday things don't trigger it anyway.

"Why don't we go around the room and say our names and something interesting about us." This is what I'm talking about. What if I trip over my words and everyone laughs at me? _No, that won't happen,_ I tell myself, but the idea nags at me. "How about... I'll make it easy. Just tell us your name and what your favorite color is. I'll start. I'm Ms. Reyes and my favorite color is red."

It seems many people in this class are introverted, except maybe Zeke and Shauna. Everyone else goes around the room whispering their names and favorite colors.

"My name is Zeke," he says confidently. "And my favorite color is green." Tobias, who sits next to Zeke, gets an elbow to the side when he doesn't speak up.

"My name is Tobias," he says. He doesn't sound as quiet as he looks. "My favorite color is black."

By the time it gets around to me I feel the words caught in my throat. I clear my throat and keep my eyes on the desk. "My name is Al and my favorite color is blue." I look at Tris, who's next.

"My name is Beatrice and I don't know what my favorite color is. I like a lot of different colors."

When everyone is done, Ms. Reyes tells us to get out a piece of paper and title it entry one." Our first prompt is a word bomb. We start writing and then she'll shout out words that we have to incorporate into the story.

I tap the pen in the paper creating little dots of ink all over the paper until I can think of a start to the story. An idea never really comes to me, but I find some inkling and put it onto paper. Minutes and six or seven random words later, Ms. Reyes calls time and we put our writing utensils down.

"Why don't you all share your story with someone near you?" Ms. Reyes suggests. Beatrice and I look at each other shyly. I can tell she doesn't want to share either, but at least it's not in front of the entire class.

"You can go first," I say, hoping we'll run out of time before we can get to mine.

"It's not very good," she says. I smile and shrug. She blinks a couple of times and clears her throat.

"Haphazardly I ran down the broken up street. I had to get there in time. I felt as if the situation would crumble if I didn't make it in time. I had to get to grandma's for her fresh popcorn balls. They are delicious and I could eat twenty of them if they wouldn't pull my teeth out. Crossing the street, I scurried past a red mustang parked by a fire hydrant. Should I call to have it towed? I turned on my phone to realize I got a text from my friends. My inbox was littered with questions like "do you want to come over for a campfire?" I ignore them all for now when I see the time. The breeze hit me and made me tremor in my jacket. That didn't stop me, but the black ice on the next block did. I stand up and limp the rest of the way to Grandma's." As she finishes she locks her gaze on the desk.

"I like it," I say. "It's very creative." She shifts her gaze to meet mine. We lock eyes for a short while. I have never met anyone with such beautiful eyes.

"Thank you," she whispers. She nods at my paper on the desk. I turn my head away from her.

"Uh... Mine isn't that good."

"I'm sure it's great," she says.

I cough before I begin reading what I wrote.

"Haphazardly I hurry down the path. The dirt floor of the forest is littered with dead tree limbs and rocks the size of baseballs. The only thing that keeps me going is the pungent smell of burnt popcorn. Rachel was never good at cooking, even such simple things like popcorn. When I reach her, she's sitting on a log with her hands shoved into her shallow pockets.

'About time you got here,' she says. 'I thought I heard something.'

'What did you hear?' I ask.

'It sounded like... I don't know. Like a mustang.'

'The car?' Her wide eyes narrow into a look of disapproval.

'No, the horse.' I roll my eyes. How does she even know what a mustang sounds like compared to other cars?

I walk behind her to gather the firewood she left out. I toss it into the campfire for extra warmth. It _is_ rather chilly outside. I feel a tremor run up my spine. It is so cold out I think if there was any water it would freeze into a pond of black ice."

Like Beatrice I keep my eyes trained on the paper in front of me when I finish. That was such a horrible story. Why can't I do anything?

"That was really good," she says.

"Thanks," I mumble.

"All right class," Ms. Reyes begins. "Who wants to share what they wrote with the rest of us?" The class is silent. My hands remain in my lap so as not to confuse Ms. Reyes. I don't look up until I feel Beatrice's eyes on me. I smile at her and her clear eyes relax me enough to allow myself to sit back in my chair as Zeke reads what he wrote.

"That was very creative, Zeke," Ms. Reyes says when he's done. "Anyone else?"

The class is full of murmurs going back and forth between a few students. Finally, Shauna raises her hand. I stop paying attention after the first sentence.

"You're not going to read yours?" I tease with a playful grin. Beatrice glances from my face to her own paper on the desk and back.

"This was awful," she whisper with a joking smile. "I'm sure I can write something better later." I smile and exhale.

"I can't wait to hear that." She rolls her eyes lightheartedly.

"What about you?" she says. "Aren't you going to read yours?" I shake my head.

"I'll read mine when you read yours." She moves her chair to sit a little closer to me. No one would notice she moved at all. Except me. She's only an inch or two closer than she was before, but that doesn't calm my heart rate any.

"Is that a challenge?" I raise an eyebrow at her proposition.

"Do you want it to be?" What is wrong with me? I never act like this. Not even with the friends I've had for years. I have never been this way, especially around girls. I didn't think about my thought before I said it out loud. What if she accepts? Then I'll have to read my story in front of everyone.

"Not particularly," she responds, all signs of joking gone.

I shrug casually and say, "Okay." I am honestly grateful.

"Wait. Okay?"

"Okay." She raises an eyebrow, confused. It's really cute. She's really cute. I smile again. "If you're not comfortable reading your stuff in front of the class, I totally understand. I'm not gonna make you." She returns the expression.

"Al," she says. "You just said the one thing I wish all my old teachers said to me." I laugh. Not necessarily because what she said was funny, though it was, but because it's relatable. We used to have to read our essays in front of the class in middle school for a grade. She joins in on the laughter and, coming from her, it's a beautiful sound.

For the rest of the class Ms. Reyes goes over the syllabus and talks briefly about upcoming projects. When the bell rings, we all stand, push in our chairs, and walk out the door into the warm hallway.

"Where are you going now?" Beatrice asks.

"Math." She chuckles humorlessly.

"Have fun. I'll see you at lunch?" I smile again and nod before saying goodbye and walking in the opposite direction.

I hate math. It's a sucky invention. Okay, maybe not sucky. Just algebra is sucky. Since I was TA-ing for Mr. Kang yesterday I know what to expect from this class. I know all the answers, so instead of focusing on what I should be, taking notes, I find myself sketching something on the paper. I look down and see I drew a pair of eyes, not a very good drawing, but they look familiar enough. They kind of resemble Beatrice's. I sigh and erase it from the paper before I shove it into my backpack.

At the end of class, as I'm leaving for lunch, Mr. Kang jokingly asks me if I learned anything new. I decide to play along.

"Yeah." And I guess it's true. I learned that Beatrice Prior has the most beautiful eyes out of everyone I know.


	3. Day Two

Chapter Three

I walk down to the crowded cafeteria and scan the room for at least one of my friends. Christina and Will sit in the hard, blue plastic chairs that stick to your thighs no matter what the season is. We're allowed to eat off campus, I don't know why we never do. We could sit in the hallway, not that the halls are any less crowded than the cafeteria. And early September is still hot from summer break, so I guess it's not really worth bringing up.

"Hey," Will says as I walk up to the round table. I honestly don't know how we can fit everyone.

"Hi," I say. "How are you?"

"I'm good, how are you?" he replies. I tell him I'm all right. This is our typical lunchtime banter that hasn't changed in years. Hi, how are you? I'm fine. Oh, that's good. Okay, awkward silence until Uriah gets here and livens up the conversation. It's not that I don't get along with everyone, because I do, it's just harder for me to participate in since I'm shyer than the others. But now that Beatrice has joined our group, perhaps we'll get a chance to talk more since she seems shy as well, not that shy people can't be talkative in a large group.

"How were your first two classes?" Chris asks me. I blink a few times, still not quite used to people asking me about myself.

"Fine," I say. "Beatrice is in my writing class."

Christina smiles and says, "That's nice. Anything interesting to write about?"

"She's a really good writer. I liked her story," I say. "I don't think I could ever write anything as good as she can."

"As well as she can," Will corrects. I roll my eyes. Will is by far the smartest out of all of us and he likes to correct our poor grammar.

From here on, everyone else trickles in. Uriah and Marlene and Lynn find their usual spots at the table, and a couple minutes later Beatrice walks in with another girl. She looks familiar, she may have been in a class or two of mine before, but I can't remember her name. She resembles Beatrice quite a bit, they're both blonde and have blue eyes. Her eyes don't shine like Beatrice's do, though.

"This is Susan," she says. "We're in psychology together." Oh, that's right. Susan Black. I don't think I've had a class with her since the third grade.

Susan quietly says hello to the group and smiles. Beatrice sits down next to Will and leaves a space between her and Marlene for Susan to sit.

"Hi!" Marlene exclaims. Marlene is a very cheerful person and loves meeting new people. She must already like Susan. "I'm Marlene and this is Uriah, Lynn, Al, Christina, and Will." Marlene smiles her usual bright smile.

"It's nice to meet you all," Susan says.

"So," Christina says, a smile forming on her lips as she finishes off her baby carrot. "I hear you wrote an interesting story today in writing." Beatrice's worried eyes shoot to my face the moment Christina's words leave her mouth. I lean back in my chair, the way teachers always told us not to do.

"I didn't tell her what it was about," I say. "I just told her that I liked your story." A slight pink hue touches her cheeks, and she glances down at her lunch.

"It wasn't as good as yours." I, too, have to look away. My word bomb was one of the worst written stories ever put on paper. I notice from the corner of my eye that Christina's eyes flit between my face and Beatrice's as she absentmindedly takes Will's hand.

An awkward silence presents itself. Marlene keeps switching her focus from me to Beatrice like Christina was, but with more enthusiasm. A playful smirk resides on her face.

"I never really heard about your sister," Beatrice says to Will, quickly changing the subject. "What's she like?"

Will looks pleasantly surprised. He smiles and peers around the room, looking for Cara, but she isn't here. I've met Cara a handful of times whenever I went over to Will's house. She's nice enough, to me, at least. She would always be doing her homework or studying for some rigorous test she had in a week. I never understood how she could study so far in advance, this coming from someone who doesn't really study and sticks B's on every test.

"Her name is Cara, she's a senior this year, she's really smart. I think almost all of her classes are advanced placement."

"That's really impressive," Susan adds.

"Do you have siblings?" Uriah asks her.

"I have a brother, Robert. He's in our grade." Everyone starts asking Susan some questions about her brother and her family and she answers them quietly and thoughtfully. When the questions die out, the focus changes. Everyone starts talking about the morning they had until the bell rings.

Beatrice checks her schedule from her backpack, groans quietly, then stuffs it back into her bag. I try to see what class she has, but I can't see from this angle. Christina, who had stood up to throw her garbage away, managed to though.

"Ooh," Christina says. "Have fun in gym. You have to run a mile outside." Beatrice stares at her with a vapid expression, clearly not excited. I am though, we have class together.

"I feel that," Lynn mutters as she passes by to toss her garbage in the trash as well.

"Sweet!" Uriah exclaims. "We have gym together." Beatrice smiles, relieved.

"Me too," I add, maybe sounding a little too excited.

The three of us walk to the gym together talking (and complaining from Beatrice) about how running a mile, outside, in seventy six degree weather is not ideal. Uriah complains the least. He is always up for a challenge.

Sometimes, I really hate the Chicago weather.

* * *

So we're in gym, not dressed down, and about to go run a mile outside when Eric suggests we run a mile and a half, well, he really suggested two miles, but Max said he didn't want to lose us on our first day.

"Why?" Beatrice says as she drops her bag in the corner of the room near the bleachers. "Why? How is this fair?" I can't help but laugh, even though we have to go through this hell together. But while it's certainly a con, running in the heat, it's a pro too since I get to do it with her. Wait, that sounded weird... At least I didn't say it out loud. Did I?

"Life isn't fair Beatrice," I joke. "And the world is conspiring against you." She sticks her tongue out at me and Uriah and I laugh as we walk outside. Beatrice even smiles too.

"Who is the big guy?" she asks. By the time we get outside onto the track for our first lap, Eric already halfway done with his first.

"That's Eric," Uriah says. "He's a senior."

"What's a senior doing in gym?" Beatrice says.

"It's an elective," Uriah says. "He wanted to do this."

"Why would anyone want to do this?" she mutters. Uriah and I laugh again and we continue jogging around the school, sluggishly. Somehow, actually I'm not surprised, the three of us are the last group. Uriah could be ahead of us, but he's nice enough to run with us. Though I wouldn't mind being alone with Beatrice.

"Oh," a voice says. Ugh. Peter Hayes. King of the Dicks, though Eric and Drew are the other kings. "It's the caboose."

"The caboose is important to the train," Uriah shoots back.

"And you're back here," I say. "Wouldn't that make you a part of the caboose?" I realize my smartass remark will not do me well. Peter doesn't take sarcasm lightly and he might want to beat me up now.

While Peter's face suggests he is pissed at me, he angrily exhales and runs on. Next to me, Beatrice stops running and holds up her hand for a high five.

"That was awesome," she says, grinning. I smile too and we trudge along. Since we've been at the school longer, Uriah and I show Beatrice a few short cuts to get ahead. We end pass a large cluster of kids and finish before they expect us to.

While we wait for the others to finish, we wait in the shade under a large tree. Beatrice pants heavily.

"You'll get used to it," Uriah says. Beatrice playfully shoves him.

"That wasn't so bad, right," Max says. "Bring a water bottle to class and don't forget to eat a good lunch as well."

The bell rings and everyone walks inside, barely, to grab our stuff.

"What classes do you have next?" Beatrice asks.

"English," I say.

"Psych," Uriah tells her.

"Have fun," she says to both of us.

"What about you?" I ask. "Where are you going now?"

"Study hall," she says, her voice slightly disappointed. "But I'm sure I can use it."

"Take advantage unlike Uriah," I tease. He shoves me hard. Beatrice laughs and we walk inside the main building. I get to walk with her a little ways before she turns off into the library.

"See you tomorrow," I say.

"Bye." She waves and pushes through the doors. My eyes steady on her unlike she disappears behind the wall.

"I have never heard you talk so much in one day," Uriah says. "Not that that's bad."

I shrug.

"You like her, don't you?" Uriah smiles suggestively.

"Isn't psych back there?" I say, indicating the other direction with my head.

"I can afford to be late," he says.

"Don't think Ms. Wu would like that."

Eventually Uriah goes back the other direction and I continue on to English. Mr. Eaton is an okay teacher, so I've heard. I've also heard the rumors about him abusing his son.

It's the same old first day of class jazz. The syllabus, brief introductions, blah blah blah.

"Later in the year-" Mr. Eaton says. He is cut off by a bell, the intercom sound.

"Hello students of Lake View High School," Principal Daniels says. "Welcome to a new year. I know this year will be great. Remember to put your best foot forward. You earn your grades, so put the effort into the grades you want. Have a good year."

The message ends with the same ring as the message began with.

Mr. Eaton finishes his spiel and then class ends. Finally. I can go home and do homework and then I can do what I want, which isn't much. I read a lot and watch TV. Unfortunately my mom recently got me hooked on ER, so I'll probably spend the rest of my evening watch bloody people get rolled into the emergency room and little kids die and hope that this next episode Mark and Jen's divorce is finalized.

* * *

When my parents get home from work, I'm sitting on the couch with my laptop in front of me. Dr. Lewis is with little Suzie.

"Which episode?" Mom asks.

"Just started season two."

"Good luck!" she calls as she walks into the kitchen.

"Season two is hell," Dad agrees. I smile and turn the DVD off for a while.

"How was work?" I ask.

"It was fine," he says. "Nothing interesting. How was school? How's your friend that's a girl that you like so much?"

I pause. "How do you know about Beatrice?"

"Oh, good. I was wondering if she had a name."

I sigh. "What are you talking about?"

"It's not hard to tell when you have a crush on a girl, son." He laughs and hangs up his jacket in the closet.

I ignore him and return to ER. It's much more interesting.

Over dinner my parents mention they have an anniversary vacation planned next month.

"Are you okay with staying by yourself for a week?" Mom says.

"Yeah," I say. "I'll be fine."

"Do you want to stay with Grandma?" I do not want to wake up and come down stairs to Grandma doing her exercises again. I shudder at the memory.

"I'm fine Mom."

"Okay. I just worry about you." I smile at her. "Take care of yourself. You can call at anytime. Time difference doesn't matter. Just... If you need help call me, or Grandma, or one of your friends." I nod. She's been very reluctant to leave me alone since I was diagnosed with depression. I understand her worry. I would worry too if it were my child.

"Maybe Beatrice?" she suggests.

"I don't even have her phone number," I say, getting irritated. They do not stop bringing up Beatrice.

"That's your next step, then, isn't it?" Dad says as him and Mom stand and clear the table.


	4. Books and Confidence

Chapter Four

 **Sorry for the delay everyone!**

At lunch today Beatrice decides to sit next to me. She gives me a smile as she joins the lunch table. I manage to return a small smile as the words my dad said last night ring in my mind. He thinks I should get her phone number. I could totally ask her for it, too, if I wasn't so anxious.

After a dip in the conversation, Christina looks at Beatrice and says, "Beatrice, did you know that Al really likes reading as well?" I smile at Beatrice lightly and catch Christina's sly wink. I restrain myself from rolling my eyes at her.

"Doesn't a lot of people like-" Will begins, but his words are cut off by Christina elbowing him in the ribs. Beatrice smiles and turns her attention to me.

"That's awesome," she says. "What books do you like?" I shrug.

"I don't know," I answer. That's my go-to reply. "I like a lot of different books. Ranging from Catcher in the Rye to Me Before You. What about you?" Smooth.

"Um..." She takes a moment to think about it. She looks cute when she's thinking hard. Actually she always looks cute. "I like a lot of things too. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Percy Jackson... I know those are for younger kids, but..."

"I still like them," I say, mostly referring to Percy Jackson. "Did you see the movies?" It would be nice to talk to somebody who has seen the movies to cringe with.

"I wish I didn't." I laugh. They were pretty bad.

"Like The Mortal Instruments?" I add. No one cared for the movie adaptation. I hear they're making it into a TV show this January. I wonder if I'll like it.

"It wasn't terrible," Beatrice says. "It was better than Percy Jackson." A half smile touches my lips.

"Do I even have to ask who your favorite TMI couple is?" She smiles back. Her smile is so beautiful. I honestly can't get over it.

"No. They are meant to be. Camille can fuck off." I am at a loss for words and I hate that. It's true when someone quiet and appears like a cinnamon roll it is shocking when they swear. But I get annoyed when I occasionally (and I mean seldom) swear and everyone looks at me like I dragged in an animal carcass.

"Sorry," she says, "was that too much?"

"Have you ever been to public school?" Uriah teases. "We have all heard so much worse. It's just surprising coming from such a quiet girl." I can see how this annoys her, the irritation is in her usually soft blue eyes. I promise I'll try not to act as surprised next time. It's something I need to work on.

"But still. Malec is life."

"That's true," I agree. "Do you have the same obsession with Sebastian/Jonathan Morgenstern that everyone else does?"

"I hate Sebastian and I feel bad for Jonathan, but I'm not going to cry over his death." I nod and Christina leans on the table inching a bit closer to me and Beatrice. She finishes crunching on her apple slice before asking a question.

"What are your opinions on Maia and Bat versus Maia and Jordan?"

My answer slips out of my mouth before I can even register that I'm talking. "I love the idea of forgiveness. Jordan felt bad for what he did, he didn't mean to do it. Maia should forgive him." Beatrice leans back so far she almost falls off the bench.

"He hurt her," she says. "He physically hurt her. That's never okay. I don't care how sorry he is. I cannot ship Jordan and Maia. I'm not quite sure about Maia and Bat, but he treats her better. He cares about her."

"Jordan cares about her too," I say.

"Yes, but Bat never attacked her. And they are kind of canon in the end."

"Not necessarily. He held her hand, that was it." She opens her mouth to same something, but suddenly stops herself.

"Did you read A Long Conversation? It's in the back of Lady Midnight."

"No," I say, shaking my head. "I want to read it, but I want to finish The Infernal Devices trilogy first."

"Be prepared to be conflicted over Wessa and Jessa," Marlene adds.

"But you don't have to be," says Lynn.

"Okay, maybe Heronstairs or Herongraystairs," Marlene amends.

"I'm still on the third chapter of the first one," I say.

"Then strap in," Beatrice says with a smile, "you're about to board a roller coaster of emotions. Have you read The Raven Cycle?"

"No." I sigh. I feel like loser for not reading as much as she has. And I have no excuse not to. I don't do anything after school except watch ER. "I am so book deprived. I have it in my bookshelf, but I haven't gotten around to it yet."

"Have a fun weekend," she teases. I chuckle before twisting around to get a better look at her.

"Okay," I say seriously. "I will finish Clockwork Angel, if you read a book of my choosing." Beatrice smirks an adorable smirk at my challenge.

"Deal. Which book?" I take out my phone and open up my Goodreads app. I scroll through my list of books. Which one would she like? I've read so many over the years I can't remember what most of them are about. Then one of them catches my eye. This was one of my favorite summer reads last year. I smile a little to myself and show her the book.

"I guess I'll be making a trip to the bookstore soon," she says, examining the cover. "Okay. You're on. Let's do this."

The rest of lunch continues with Beatrice and I talk about books we like and want to read. And of course fan theories and polite debates. It's nice to debate with someone who doesn't disrespect my opinion. Add 'respectful' to the long list of traits I admire in her.

The bell rings and we all reluctantly stand to go to class. Beatrice and Marlene have math and I have history. Ew.

"See you later," Beatrice says.

"Bye," I say. After she walks away, I feel a hand clap me on the back.

"You've got it bad," Will says.

"It's not bad," I say defensively. I like liking her. Then again I usually like liking whoever my crush is at that time until it is proven she doesn't like me; then it's not fun anymore. So more often than not? Maybe me liking having a crush is rarer than I thought. Anyway...

"Ask her out." I spin on my heels to look at him. Will bursts out laughing. I must have a ridiculous expression.

"Are you crazy?"

"If you want to go on a date with her then you should probably ask her out. That's how dates typically start. Unless she asks you out."

"Those are both insane hypotheticals," I say.

"Calm down Ann Perkins," Will says. "All you need is confidence." I roll my eyes.

"We both know that's something I lack."

"Meet me after school in center hall," he says as he makes his way to science. I roll my eyes again.

"You can't change my personality," I shout after him. "Remember what happened in The Brady Brides?"

* * *

I text my mom after school and tell her I'm hanging out with Will for a while. When I get to center hall I find him leaning against the wall.

"Are you ready?" he asks.

"No," I say.

"Alright," he continues, "let's take a walk. I'm going to teach you how to be confident."

"This is a waste of time," I say.

"Only because you're not motivated. So the first step is to-" I stop paying attention to Will. He cannot manage to make me confident, it has to come naturally for me.

On our walk away from the school, I see Beatrice walking with someone I can only assume to be her brother. She doesn't see me and Will since she's already across the street.

Maybe I should have been paying attention to Will.


	5. Storytellers

Chapter Five

 **Hi everyone! Just wanted to say that I'm going on spring break this next week so I won't be updating, but I'll be back on the 30th.**

"Have a good day sweetheart," Mom says. "You sure you don't want me to drive you?"

I smile at her as convincingly as I can. "I'm okay, Mom, but thanks."

"Text me when you get there." She kisses my cheek as I pull open the door.

"Oh, Albert," Dad calls as Mom turns back to the newspaper. "Remember? Her number?" I scoff and walk out the door. As I shut it behind me I can the sound of my dad's laugh and my mom smacking his arm.

At least it's Friday.

The best part of my day is starting it with Beatrice. I'm not very good at creative writing, at least compared to her, but I like sitting next to her every morning. And as much as I hate gym and running, I like running next to her.

When I get to class, I quickly text my mom and shove my phone back into my backpack. A couple minutes later Beatrice walks into the room.

"Are you ready for your challenge?" I say when she sits down, a little too enthusiastically. Beatrice sits down beside me. I can feel my heart speed up. I can hear it too, and I hope she doesn't. She smiles a smile I've only seen on one occasion-the first day of school. The corners of her mouth turn up slightly at the edges and she keeps her eyes on what she's doing, which is taking out her materials.

"I've made plans to go to the bookstore this weekend," she says. "Are you ready?"

"Yep. I read some last night. I'm on chapter four now." Whatever bashfulness she had earlier has faded away. The way she laughs sounds like she feels more comfortable around me. This is good news for me.

We spend the next few minutes talking about Tessa and the Dark sisters and the short scene in the beginning with Will and Jem. Then the bell rings and we try to contain our laughter as Ms. Reyes starts class.

"All right class," Ms. Reyes says, "today we are going to work on our storytelling skills. I'm going to call out a word and you will tell a story that has to do with that word. We'll start with true stories to make it easier. An example of this is if I said 'school,' you would have to tell your tablemates a story that involved that word. Does this make sense?" Everyone in the class is silent, but we nod.

"Great. Okay. Let's start with 'school.'" Beatrice and I turn toward each other and the awkward silence turns our slight smiles into uncomfortable ones. I tell myself it's just the silence.

"Ladies first," I say. I notice she blushes a bit and the discomfort disappears a little.

"Okay, so one day, back in Milwaukee, I was at recess with my friend Sarah. This was in fifth grade by the way. And for some reason we were running on the field and I accidentally tripped her and we fell." I try to imagine Beatrice as a little girl. The way I see her she's very graceful, it's hard to picture her tripping someone. It's such a silly idea to me, I force myself to not laugh out loud. "And my crush was watching... And I was wearing white pants." I can't help but laugh. Not at her, but the situation. Sounds like something that would happen to me. Beatrice chuckles nervously and my laughter dies down.

"I'm sorry," I say. "That's not funny. That sounds very unfortunate."

"So why are you laughing?" I try to compose myself.

"I'm not," I say. "I'm choking." Beatrice rolls her eyes teasingly and grins.

"Your turn." A story pops into my head from about three or four years ago. It was embarrassing for me, so I think it's only fair that I share it.

"Okay, okay. So once when I was in middle school, me and Christina were in gym. It was free time, so we walked around the track. We didn't know what time it was, so we headed back, but the door was locked. We literally- like, we started panicking. So our resolution was to go the long way around, like we would go into gym from the main building. Our teacher didn't even notice. But for two twelve year olds it was freaky."

She covers her mouth with her hand. She looks really cute when she's trying not to laugh.

"I'm very sorry," she says. "That's incredibly unfortunate." I roll my eyes the same way she had done and we laugh and wait for Ms. Reyes to call out the next word.

"Mom." Beatrice laughs with a clear excitement in her eyes.

"Sounds like you have a good story." She nods and I smile.

"Okay, so when my mom was younger she and her friends drove to Madison for a short while and were driving back and they had to stop at a rest stop. They didn't really want to stop because my mom's car was old and it took ten minutes to restart it once it died, which was every time they turned it off. But they had to stop, keep in mind she had a stick shift.

"When my mom tried again, she didn't start the car in time and it flooded the engine. So they waited on a nearby bench. My mom was with some of her friends and Angie wanted to know what my mom's pepper spray looked like. So she took out the can and held it away from both of them and sprayed it, but the wind picked up and blew the pepper spray into Angie's eyes." The image is too hilarious not to laugh at. She joins in and I try to calm down enough for me to tell my story. I take a moment to think of one. Hmmm. Okay, got it.

"So when my mom was little, she was playing in her room when my aunt came up to her and said 'Hey! Do you really want to make Mom happy?' and my mom was enthusiastic about the idea, so she followed my aunt into the bathroom. My aunt told my mom to put toothpaste on the toilet paper and throw it on the ceiling." Beatrice covers her mouth with her hand, waiting anxiously. "And then she got my grandma and then my mom got in trouble."

"You're aunt was devious." I smile a little, not because of the story, Cnut because my story actually made her excited. "How much older is your aunt than your mom?"

"About three and a half years, four or so."

"Wow!"

"I don't have siblings and I'm okay with that knowing how awful my aunt was to my mom," I add.

"Caleb's a fine brother, but we're also really close in age." It must be nice to have a sibling, especially one you're close to.

The next word Ms. Reyes chooses is 'friends.' I have to stop to think about it for a moment. My immediate thought is the TV show. I'll wait anyway for her to go first.

"You go first," she says, "I'm trying to think."

"Okay let's see." Again, thinking for a while. "Well, I only had two friends in elementary school. Christina was one of them. We met in third grade." I shrug, my uneventful story already dying down.

"When did you meet Will and the others?"

"Well, we had science with Will last year and it took a while before they actually started dating. Will's sister is friends with Zeke and that's how we met Uriah, and that lead to us meeting Marlene and Lynn."

"Lynn doesn't like me, does she?" Beatrice asks, she doesn't sound too disappointed.

"She doesn't mind you too much. She's not really a people person. Don't take it too personally. She only really likes Marlene, Uriah, and her sister." I jerk my chin in a direction behind Beatrice. She turns around to look at Shauna.

She turns back to me and says, "Shauna is Lynn's sister?" I nod.

"She seems kind of..." It takes me a second to realize the focus of our conversation is back on Lynn. I understand what she means.

"We think she's a little bitter," I whisper.

"Why?" I lean in closer, making sure Shauna doesn't hear, but she's too busy talking to Zeke and Tobias.

"She has a crush Marlene, we suspect, and is jealous of her and Uriah's relationship." She nods slightly. I sit back in my seat. Looking at her is what I expect Jack feels when he looks at Rose, or Will and Christina, or... another famous couple.

"Oh," she says. "Unrequited love." I look at the ground. Yeah, I know the feeling. I feel myself frown.

"Yeah," I mumble. "It sucks." The silence lingers for a while until Ms. Reyes changes the word to movie.

"Once," Beatrice says, jumping on the topic. "My mom and I wanted to see a movie, but it wasn't playing in many theaters and so we had to go kind of far away. And when we got there, the roof was falling down in chunks. I seriously thought we were going to die." I look up at her with with wide eyes and pursed lips. What movie is worth nearly dying?

"I didn't want to watch Harry Potter when it first came out," I say, "and it took so much convincing from my dad until I watched it and then I became obsessed with it. When it came time for me to watch the Goblet of Fire, I was so scared, I refused to watch it after the first time." Maybe I should add that I'm not afraid to watch it now.

"I feel that," she says. "When you're young, the Goblet of Fire is not the best movie to watch."

A few random words are thrown out, but then class ends. We get our stuff together and Beatrice waits for me by the door. We say goodbye as she goes to psychology and I go to math. I wonder if I could have my schedule switched around.

I take my seat from last class. It takes a short time for our passing period to end, but class drags on. I find myself gazing out the window at the park behind the school. I hate math, but I'm decent at it. Mr. Kang assigns a packet as our class work. We're supposed to work with a partner, but because he's giving us the option to choose that means I work alone.

I zip through the first few pages of the packet until I find myself stopping to think about Beatrice. I do that a lot. I had to backtrack ten minutes of ER the other day and reread the same paragraph in Clockwork Angel last night.

* * *

I kept thinking about what my dad said this morning when I was in math. Of course being as shy as I am has its downside. Thankfully Uriah brings it up today at lunch.

"We don't have your phone numbers," he says to Beatrice and Susan. He pulls his phone out and waits for someone.

"I don't have a cell phone," Susan says. "We have a really old landline at our house." She tells him what it is. "Though no one really calls us on it. Only my father, brother, and I live there."

"What's yours, Beatrice?"

"414-555-5683." Everyone puts their numbers in our phones, except Lynn. No one says anything to her. Maybe Beatrice was right. I enter Beatrice's first and nearly forget the last digits of Susan's phone number. Not that it truly matters if I did. I don't have a reason to call Susan.

I send Beatrice a quick text letting her know it's me. She enters all the phone numbers into her contacts and puts her phone away.

* * *

In gym, we run another mile and on our third lap around the track, Peter catches up.

"Still don't know, or still don't want to tell me?" I wonder what he's talking about.

"Shove off," Beatrice says.

"I'm not being offensive," he says defensively, "I'm just curious. Like Christina."

"Yes, well, while it's not offensive, it did come off a little rude. But you want the answer? No one."

"That can't be true. My mother is a psychologist, she taught me to read body language when I was young. I know when people are lying..."

"Leave her alone," I say. "She's done nothing to you."

"I just can't live in a world with liars..."

"So how do you live with yourself?" I may have made a fatal error. Peter stops jogging next to us and he looks at me. My heart starts racing again.

"You better watch what you say." I chuckle, trying to defuse the tension.

"It's funny, you think I'm scared of you." Peter stares at me for a while. I maintain eye contact and wait for him to back down. I notice Beatrice clutches Uriah behind Peter. He wraps his arm around her and pushes her gently behind him. I know it's to protect her, and that's what I want, but I don't like it.

"Don't make me give you a reason to be scared of me," Peter says before running off. Beatrice smacks my arm like my mom did to my dad this morning. That was painfully close to a fight.

"What's wrong with you? He could kill you." I laugh, but it's more because I'm nervous.

"I believe in standing up for people-"

"That's great," she interrupts, "so do I, but he's just giving me a hard time. I've been bullied worse. It's fine."

"No it's not. No one should have to go through that." She stares at me while maintaining her breathing. She steps forward and wraps her arm around me in a hug. I step back out of surprise, but this is my chance to hug her back.

After gym, Uriah and I walk Beatrice to study hall since she still looks like she might puke.

"Wow!" Uriah says. "That was hella crazy."

"Yeah," I agree nonchalantly and that ends the conversation. Uriah heads back the other way to go to psych and I continue on to English.


	6. Walk with Dad

**Sorry it's been a while. I have my senior thesis to work on, but the final draft is due soon so I'll be able to update more.**

Chapter Six

I spent basically the whole evening reading. It was a bit harder to get through, personally, but it wasn't bad. I finally understand everyone's Wessa Jessa discussion. They said I didn't have to worry about which I won't. For now.

Before heading downstairs, I take a quick shower and make my bed the best I can for being tired and without much effort.

"Did you sleep well?" Mom asks with a smile. I look at the clock on the wall. Ten o'clock.

"Yeah," I say through a yawn.

"You were up late last night. Until three. What were you doing, may I ask?"

"I was reading," I say. "Beatrice and I challenged each other to complete a book of the other's choosing."

Mom sends a smirk in my dad's direction. He smiles back at her before shifting his gaze to me.

"Making a move?" he said. I roll my eyes. The idea is completely ridiculous. Like she would ever want to go on a date with me. Plus I wouldn't have the courage to ask her on a date or make a move or whatever he thinks I'm doing. He should know me well enough by now that I am not... dauntless even to do that.

"It was just a friendly competition," I say.

"Did you get her phone number?" I roll my eyes again as I pour cereal into the bowl. I take the milk out of the fridge, check the expiration date since my mom almost food poisoned me many times over my life, and pour it on top. I add too much sugar on top "by accident," and then I sit down to eat it.

"I do have her phone number actually," I say, my words slightly jumbled by the marshmallows.

"Good for you," Dad says and then he drops it. After I finish my breakfast I rinse out my dishes and put them in the dishwasher. I grab a glass from the cabinet to my left and fill it with water.

"What are you going to do today?" Mom asks. I purposefully take a lengthy drink just so I don't have to answer her right away.

"Well, I'm going to start season four of ER." My mom, the one who got me to watch ER, is now claiming I watch it too much and there are other things I could be spending my time on that's better.

"You were just on season two, I thought."

"It's addicting, Mom." I give her a quick kiss on the cheek and go into the living room and place disc one in my laptop. My parents let me finish the disc before Dad interrupts me. I can tell this won't end well for me, or my dignity.

"You've been in the house a lot," Dad says. "Let's go for a walk." A walk? I stare at him. We haven't gone on a walk together since I was twelve. And that usually means he wants to talk to me about something. Something I more than likely don't want to talk about.

"We have been on a walk just the two of us in four years."

"Let's change that." I continue to stare at him until he stands and looks down at me with that commanding dad look he has. I sigh and put my laptop on top of the table next to me. I wanted to learn more about Elizabeth Corday.

"We'll be back," Dad calls to mom. She tells us she'll be here as we step through the narrow door. The first block is pretty quiet. He's probably thinking about what to say. In the meantime I try to enjoy the nice day while my heart races and I try not to worry over what my dad wants to talk to me about. Though I think I already know.

"I know this will be embarrassing," he says.

"No, no, no! I've already heard that talk." That was one of the most mortifying moments of my personal life ever. It's even worse coming from parents who never lie. I shudder.

"It's a different one, don't worry," he says with a low laugh. "This girl Beatrice..."

"Oh, Dad..." I don't want to hear this. I don't want to hear this. I don't I don't I don't.

"Just hear me out. I have never seen a girl make you react like this before, I mean that in a good way. Now that you have her number the next step is to text her." The idea makes me want to throw up.

"First?" I raise both eyebrows at him. He can't be serious. But of course he is. I know he's only trying to help make me as happy as possible, and it's a very nice gesture, but I don't need his help. I don't need anybody's help because I'm not going to act on my feelings.

"Well, yeah. I called your mother first."

"That's even worse. Calling." Dad laughs.

"It's horrifying. Days without texting, but that's the way we did things. And I know you have anxiety and it's not easy to text first, but you have the option not to call." We're both quiet for the next half-block. The awkward silence presents itself and we keep walking. I understand he wants to help, but I don't want it.

"It doesn't matter anyway," I say solemnly.

"What do you mean "it doesn't matter"? Of course it does."

"Not really. I'm not going to ask her out." Dad stops in mid-step. Oh great, now he's upset with me. I hate it when people are upset with me.

"Why?" His voice surprises me. It's calm.

"I don't want to ruin our friendship," I say. "Besides we barely know each other."

"Then you don't have much to lose, do you?" He keeps walking ahead while I'm standing in shock at his words. I don't know why I'm surprised to hear him say this. He's been talking like this for a while.

When Dad turns around and gives me a friendly smirk, I hurry to catch up. "It's not easy for me," I say.

"I know," he says. "I'm not saying you have to have do it now. Just sometime. It will build up your confidence." I am somewhat insulted by my father's and Will's lack of confidence in my confidence even though they have a right to be. I'm not confident.

"Can we go home now?" I say.

"What are you going to do at home? Watch more ER?"

"There's nothing wrong with that," I rebut, hurt. "But I actually wanted a cookie."

"Good thing," Dad says, taking a Baggie out of his pocket, "I brought you one." He tosses me the bag and I take his cookie too before I lose my opportunity.

"You can have my cookie after I teach you something." We stop at the corner. "This is a part of the lesson. Why did you take my cookie?"

"I want it."

"You should apply that drive to your girl Beatrice." I raise an eyebrow out of pure concern.

"You're saying because I want to go on a date with her that I should just take her? You do realize kidnapping is illegal."

"No!" Dad says. "You took my cookie because you wanted it and that took confidence. I could have shot you down, I could have stolen it back, or stolen your cookie, or wrestled you to the ground for it back." I laugh. "It takes time to build up confidence, so take your time. But, trust me, texting is the easiest way to go. She can't tackle you for a cookie over text."


	7. Book Group

**Twivergent1: My favorite is Carter too! He's so adorable. I have a caterpillar made of Pom Pom balls on a clothes clip named John Carterpillar.**

Chapter Seven

It's Monday again. This is just pitiful. I never think Monday's are Monday's and then I'm upset when I learn it is Monday. My dad drops me off at school this morning. I am nervous when he says he will and I have the right to be. He gives me a sly wink before I got out of the car. He, obviously, still wants me to text Beatrice. It is easier than calling. I tell him I'll do my best.

In science we are supposed to do a lab involving magnets. It's so easy my partner and I finish it in the first fifty minutes of class. The remainder of the class I sit on my phone. I consider texting Beatrice, but Ms. Matthews doesn't take kindly to distractions. I don't want her to get in trouble. Maybe I could text her during second. Mr. Eaton doesn't like distractions either, but he's not as observant as Ms. Matthews.

Ugh! I'm going to have such a slow morning. I just wish I could skip the next two hours so I can get to lunch.

Finally science ends and I jump up from my seat. I have five minutes to get to my next class, but I'll make it in plenty of time. I just want to talk to Beatrice.

In my TA class I sit in the back of the room on my phone until Mr. Kang asks me to do something like collect papers or make copies. I decide that being on my phone isn't going to get me anywhere. I'll be tempted to text her and I don't want her to get in trouble. While the other kids work and ask stupid questions that are answerable if they actually look at the worksheet, I catch up on my math homework. Now when my mom asks me if I did it I can truthfully say I did.

Math is more excruciating than science. If I don't know how to do a problem, I space out for three minutes until I skip it or write I don't know. (I don't know because you didn't teach me is not an acceptable answer. I've tried.)

I think I doze off for a few minutes and awake at the sound of the bell. Aw man! I'm gonna be late for lunch. I shove my homework into my notebook and shove my notebook into my backpack and hurry down the stairs and to the cafeteria. I'm the first one of my friends here. I don't know which is worse: being first and sitting here awkwardly by myself or being late and wasting the time I have to talk with Beatrice. I guess I already made that decision.

In a minute or two everyone else files in and sits down around me. I notice Uriah leaves a space between the two of us. I unload the lunch my mom made this morning on the table. When I look up, Beatrice has just sat down next to me. She looks excited to see me. I can't help but smile back.

"I really like Nick," she says. "He's one of the best fictional boyfriends I've ever read about."

"Nick is great," I agree. "Wessa or Jessa? I'm conflicted."

"You really don't have to worry about that," she says. "But I really admire Jem's sensitivity. Will reminds me too much of Jace and Jem reminds me of Alec, and considering I like Alec more than Jace, I prefer Jessa."

"Will and Jace have really similar personalities," I say. Marlene giggles from across the table.

"They do. Tacey though."

"I thought it was going to be worse," I say, "but it makes sense if you think about it. Tacey is kind of annoying, too." I thought she was going to have a darker secret, not that her secret wasn't dark. I thought it was going to be compatible to Stella's though.

"She kinda is, but I like her. Did you think it was going to be the person it was?"

Beatrice and I continue talking about the books we read over the weekend. Trying not to spoil anything for our friends who haven't read these books. We also spend a good amount of time trying to convince them to read them.

"I wish Gone Too Far had a sequel," Beatrice says with a touch of disappointed.

"Me too! I want to know what happens next! I'm lucky I can go home and read Clockwork Prince." The disappointment melts from her eyes and she perks up considerably.

"Your enthusiasm is adorable," she tells me. I smile. I wonder if she meant to say that or if it accidentally slipped out. Or maybe she said it before she realized she was saying it and didn't mean it. That's probably what it is because she turns her head away from me slightly.

"Thanks, so is yours." Ooh. I more than likely should not have said that. I'm such an idiot.

We continue to stare at each other while the others whisper something unintelligible. Beatrice turns her head completely and faces Christina, who is near hyperventilation.

"You okay?" she says. Christina nods and grasps Will's hand. He wraps an arm around her protectively. He mumbles something in her ear and she looks at him with a smile. The second their eyes meet, her breathing returns to normal.

They're really cute! I can't help but wish Beatrice and I could be like them one day. But the odds are slim and I shouldn't get my hopes up.

After school Dad picks me up again. He has the same smile he had this morning. It's like he didn't change positions all day. I roll my eyes as I get in the passenger seat.

"I didn't text her," I say.

"That's okay. Take your time."

On our way home I decide to tell him about lunch.

"She said that!?"

"Yeah."

Dad chuckles and says, "You're on the right path."


	8. Story Time

**First off sorry for the delay. I know, I'm terrible. Also alfan4343: I'll definitely consider that suggestion *winks back***

 **Chapter Eight**

All of today's classes will be shortened because we have a welcome assembly this morning. It's a bit early for the assembly since it is already the second week of school, usually there aren't pep assemblies until the end of the first month.

Writing starts and Ms. Reyes jumps right into class.

"If you remember last week, we went around and told stories to our table mates involving random words I said. Today we will be repeating the exercise, but now you will be inventing your own story. You will not be telling a true story." I internally groan. I'm not so good at making up stories. On the spot, at least. "And if you want, after that, we can all tell a story together. I will explain those rules when we get to the activity."

The class waits for Ms. Reyes to announce the first word, which is iguana. Odd word, but alright. Beatrice looks as if she is trying not to laugh, with her lips pressed into a tight line.

"Ron was walking home from work one day," I start (I figure she wouldn't want to go first, but I should have asked anyway. Damn it!), "when he saw something move across the busy street. From over ten yards away and without his glasses, he could not tell if the creature he saw was a possum or if it was a fat lizard. Ron was tempted to turn around and take the long way back, but then he saw the creature was an iguana. This confused Ron greatly because he didn't live in iguana territory. He then had a sudden thought and fear it would shift shapes into a dragon and catnap his precious Waffles."

"Wait," Beatrice says. "His cat's name is Waffles?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I didn't know if he thought the dragon would take his cat named Waffles, or steal his actual waffles. Got it. Continue." I chuckle, her other idea is just as humorous.

"The thought worried Ron so much, he sprinted home. Luckily the iguana had not followed him and Waffles was safe. He was lapping up the fresh water Ron set out earlier for him. Waffles looked up at Ron and meowed before returning to his water dish. Ron had nothing to fear, but he still wanted to iguana-proof the house before bed. The end."

"That was really entertaining," she says. "I like it."

We wait for Ms. Reyes to call out the next word. In the meantime, we sit awkwardly and silently. I never know what to say around her unless she begins the conversation. I know my dad would tell me to work on it, but that takes a lot of practice.

After a couple of minutes, Ms. Reyes announces the next word, 'photograph.' I'm glad I went first. I have no idea how I would incorporate the word photograph into a story.

"Ned and I rummaged through the attic looking for that box of Grandma's things. The one with all the nice silverware. She asked us to bring everything down for Lola's rehearsal dinner this evening. It took hours before we found the correct set. Who knew one person could own so much silverware? I carefully lifted the box and carried it down two flights of stairs and outside to the tent. Lola was inside putting her makeup on while the rest of us did all the hard work.

"Grandma gave us a photograph to reference how the rehearsal dinner looked days before her own wedding. It was up to me and Ned to fix it all up in the next few hours. Cindy wasn't helpful and Mom was running around barking orders at people. Now that I think about it, Ned and I got

the easy job."

I lean back in my chair. It takes me a moment to realize my mouth is hanging open a bit and my eyebrows are raised. That was a really good story! And she just made it up on the spot! She should enter America's Got Talent or something. She would get my vote.

"How do you do that? Just make up stories like that?" She shrugs.

"It took me years. I'm good at making things up to please others."

"You're very selfless," I say. She looks at me for a couple seconds, deciding her reaction. She smiles in the end.

"You are too," she says.

Before I can reply, Ms. Reyes unintentionally interrupts by shouting out the next word. Almonds.

Ugh. That's even harder than photograph.

"I took a handful of almonds from dish in front of me; eating them one at a time. I flip flopped my attention from Mom to Dad and back again as they continued arguing. I felt like I was watching a lame soap opera. They always playfully fought in this way. Going back and forth about something stupid that happened at work with smiles that said they weren't really mad. It used to scare me as a kid when my parents would fight, knowing the divorce rate was not going down.

"One day when I was visiting my aunt and uncle, and my parents started arguing, I ran into the garden in the back and my aunt came out to comfort me. I'll never forget her words. 'All couples fight and that's okay as long as nothing turns physical. It's when couples stop fighting when all hope is lost because it means here is nothing left to fight for.'"

I have no idea what I said. The words just came out of my mouth without me registering it at all. When I do register them, I internally cringe. What the hell was that story?

"Al that was beautiful," Beatrice croons. "Are you sure that wasn't a true story?"

I smile as confidently as I can. She likes it! She thought it was realistic. "Yeah. I don't see my aunt anymore, she's crazy."

"The one who told your mom to put toothpaste on the toilet paper and throw it on the ceiling?"

"That's the one. I haven't seen her in years. Probably best that way." She has been forbidden from coming to the house ever since she started doing drugs again. But, I digress.

"Well, that was amazing. That was really realistic."

"So was yours," I say.

"Who names their daughter Lola?"

I laugh.

A while later, Ms. Reyes changes the word again. Since we only have ten minutes left of class, this is the last story bomb. The word is 'orchard.'

I look back at Beatrice. She is sitting calmly in her chair with her eyes closed. I guess she's picturing an orchard. When she opens them again, she smiles, but she doesn't let her gaze fall upon mine.

"Cherry blossoms line the green pathway beneath my feet. The grass is greener here than anywhere I've seen in years. Apples litter the ground. I consider picking one up and taking a bite, but then I reconsider when I remind myself of the pesticides.

"I walk down the calming path with the breeze temporarily blowing the heat away. I close my eyes and let my feet take me where they may. Hopefully there is a stream around here. The breeze won't last and it's not enough to keep my a body at a pleasant temperature."

I wait to say anything in case she isn't done. I can tell she is when she looks at me again. I give her the same smile I did after her last story.

"Is this genetic or do you offer lessons?"

She giggles nervously and turns her head so I can't see something. I assume she's blushing.

"I don't know," she says. "I'll ask my family if they're good at this too. I'll text you after school."

When this round ends, Ms. Reyes explains our next activity.

"We are going to go around the room and share one sentence until all of our sentences string into a new story. We'll keep going until the bell rings and then we'll walk down to the auditorium together for the assembly. Is there anyone who wants to go first? Who wants to start us off?"

Zeke raises his hand immediately and Ms. Reyes chuckles and calls on him.

"Once upon a time, there was a boy named Chad."

Tobias adds one sentence, "Chad was very good at basketball."

And then Shauna, "But he was so short, it often caused problems for him."

Other students made up sentences until we learned that Chad didn't want to play basketball, he preferred rollerblading.

And then it became my turn. I can feel the heat bubbling beneath the surface of my cheeks. "Chad would take his skates out every day after school and skate around the neighborhood."

Phew! My sentence is over. Beatrice looks a bit anxious, but gets her sentence out smoothly. "He spent hours practicing; he practiced until it got dark."

The story develops into some kind of romance where Chad only took up rollerblading to impress the kid down the street who hates basketball.

It was Zeke's turn again. "When Chad reached his crush's house, not only did his heart skid to a stop, but so did he."

"Unfortunately for Chad, he tripped over the curb and fell hard on the sidewalk."

"Chad looked up to see his crush staring in utter shock."

Lauren continues after Shauna. "Chad was too embarrassed to see if... Uh... Donna was looking, so he picked himself up and rollerbladed home."

The story went around until Donna showed up at Chad's house to give him a get well soon card and went home. Chad was apparently confused by this since he was not injured severely.

The weird piece of fiction we created ends on Tobias as the bell rings. He doesn't bother wrapping up the story for Chad and Donna, which is kind of lame since I wanted to find out more.

Ms. Reyes tells us to walk quietly to the auditorium. She was going to take attendance to make sure none of us skip.

Walking through the halls, I can't stop thinking about her stories.

"You're really good Beatrice."

She opens her mouth to respond when a girl's voice echoes her name from behind. Beatrice and I both turn to face her. Nita.

"What kind of name is that?" she says. "Who named you? Your great-grandparents?"

Beatrice sighs. My name is old. Albert is very old fashioned. That's one reason I go by Al.

"Why do you do this Nita?" I say. "I have an old fashioned name too."

Nita must not know how to respond. She glares at me and Beatrice and dramatically flips her hair and walks away.

"I like your name," I say, trying to be reassuring. She glances at me for a second before following Nita with her eyes.

"Tris," she says strongly. I raise an eyebrow. "You can call me Tris. I'm done with Beatrice." I sigh sadly.

"I really do like your name."

"Thanks Al, but it's been fifteen years too long I've heard these kinds of things."

"Try not to let her upset you. She's graduating this year, so it doesn't matter. Don't let one little thing she says get you down."

"Thank you for your kind words, but I want to do this."

I drop it and we walk the short ways to the auditorium. I want to say something to her, but I have no idea what it would be.

The assembly and the rest of the day was boring. Beatrice, I mean Tris, and I don't talk at lunch as much as we typically do. I don't think she should let someone make these decisions for her.

After school and after doing my homework and eating dinner, I go over to my computer. I have an idea. I take my phone from my pocket and wave it at Dad. He cocks an eyebrow and I explain.

"I'm going to text her."

"Whoo! Good for you Champ!"

I always hated when he called me Champ.

Anyways, just as I am about to open a new message tab, my phone vibrates. It is a text from Bea- Tris! It will take some time for me to get used to, but she's important to me so I can manage.

 _50 bucks a lesson_

I take no time responding.

 _It will be worth it, Tris_


	9. Setting Up

**You guys are absolutely amazing and I can't thank you enough for your patience and support. So for being fantastic you get two chapters!**

 **And I'm starting to work on other stories too, possibly for other fandoms *winks*, but that's not important at this very moment. Anyway...**

Chapter Nine

 _Saturday, October 29th_

A few of us volunteered to help Mr. Eaton set up for the haunted house at school. I mainly volunteered because I don't own the next season of ER and I wanted to get away from my dad and his "champs" and "text her" and all that "ask her out" nonsense. And I knew Tris was going to do it too. I didn't mention that to my father.

The group of us spent last weekend sorting through boxes and getting the props we want to decorate our room. We have each been assigned a room to decorate. Mr. Eaton let us choose partners for this project. Christina had shoved me in Tris's direction before Mr. Eaton finished giving instructions, once he had she asked Matthew to be her partner.

I think this will be...interesting. I hope I don't embarrass myself too much. Actually not at all is the preferred option, but judging by how nervous Tris makes me, I'll settle for as little as possible.

Tris and I walk to room 136 where our quarters are. Today is the day we get to decorate the rooms we have been assigned. All of the stuff we chose last week is already in the room.

The box is set on the table when we arrive after making small talk about the weather and classes on our way to 136. Tris takes out our props from the box and lays them out in front of us. We have talking skulls, spiderwebs, fake blood made out of that window cling rubber, caution tape, sheets made to look like ghosts, and all that jazz.

"Here," I say. I remove my phone from my pocket and press a few buttons. I have a playlist dedicated to Halloween music. I thought it would set a good mood for the day. I set my phone down in the center of the table and begin to separate the cotton spiderwebs.

"Is this the Nightmare Before Christmas theme song?" Tris asks. I look up at her and a smile forms on my lips before I can stop it.

"Yeah."

My gaze lingers on her thoughtful expression as she takes a clingy rubber blood pool and sticks it to the wall. She moves it toward the edge to give it the effect that blood didn't just start oozing from the center of the wall.

The music plays on as we quietly decorate the plain room. Most of the walls are covered but the tables in the center of the room don't give it the atmosphere of a haunted house.

"I think we should turn the tables on their sides," Tris says as if she is forming an idea from my thoughts.

"Yeah," I say. "We could make it look like a maze."

"I like that." I can feel my stability weaken upon hearing the smile on her voice. I stumble over my feet and I quickly try to regain my balance before I go from zero to one hundred embarrassment real fast. We end up rearranging them to resemble a backwards lightning bolt.

"Should we add a strobe light?" Tris asks. "We could set it by the door, so as kids walk in it gets darker as they go through the connecting rooms."

I visualize her idea in my mind to see how it would work. "I really like that idea, but some kids might have epilepsy."

Tris's face transforms into an expression that says "of course. Why didn't I think of that?" Her flustered blinking makes the butterflies in my stomach take off in flight.

"Good point," she says, recomposed. "We could set up flashlights instead and the room still gets darker as you pass through."

I smile. "Great!"

We return to work as the creepy music plays on. Tris hangs up bits of caution tape around the room as I temporarily move a to the the center of the room so I can hang the ghostly sheets on the ceiling. There is a string connected to the ghosts' heads that I can tape onto the ceiling duct tape. I make sure to space them out around the room, at the points of the backwards lightning bolt. I feel her eyes on me as I hang them up. I hope she doesn't see me shake as I hold them up the to ceiling.

"You okay?" Tris asks. I turn to look at her and almost fall off the table.

"Yeah."

She sets the skull down on the table and climb on top of the table. It's not a large table, so the inches between us shrink. If I wasn't nervous enough already I am going to definitely fall now.

And that would be going from one hundred to seven hundred even quicker.

I can feel myself shaking lightly, and I'm not so sure it's the heights that's making me react like this.

"Do you have a fear of heights?"

I try to brush her off with a wave of my hand and a smile.

"Not really. It's not a big deal." I go back to hanging up the ghost and suddenly it's as if my fear has been erased. I'm not shaking at all.

Be- Tris must not believe me (to be honest, I've never been a good liar. Lying was never tolerated in my house) because she takes the string from me, gently brushing her hand against mine.

I'm not quite sure how to react to the light tingling sensation that gradually spreads through my body the longer our eye contact is held. Tris reaches upon bang the thing, but is a few inches too short. I don't mean to laugh, and I'm not laughing at her, but it is kind of humorous. Her eyebrows scrunch together and she follows my gaze and sees the problem.

"Five four is an average height," she says defensively. "How tall are you?" Her tone is almost bitter, but there's a hint of playfulness.

"Six three." She sticks her tongue out at me. I laugh and hang the last ghost before jumping off the table. I stumble a little, but regain my balance. That wasn't terribly embarrassing, but my cheeks still warm slightly. I hold my hand out to her and she places hers in mine and hops down. She doesn't let go so I don't either.

She smiles and the blush spreads across her face too. Then she occupies herself with placing the talking skull towards the end of the room. I decide to hang up the

banner of dancing skeletons in front of the whiteboard.

We spend another half hour or so decorating the room. When we finish, we decide to walk down the hall to see how Christina and Matthew are doing.

The halls are heavily decorated too, but not with frightening things. There are laughing pumpkins and smiling witches and animated candy corn.

Room 120 is where Christina and Matthew are stationed. We step inside the dark room where Matthew tacks ratty, fake-bloody cloth to the wall.

"Hey Matthew," Tris says. He turns toward the two of us with a friendly smile.

"Hey Tris."

There's something about the way he smiles at her that irks me. And he's not even smiling flirtatiously, he's just being friendly.

"This is Al," Tris says. "And this is Matthew." Before I can even say hello Tris asks where Christina is. Matthew opens his mouth to answer, but is cut off by Christina jumping out from behind an overturned table.

Tris jumps back and clutches my arm for support.

"What is wrong with you?" she screeches.

"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you?" Christina says, chuckling. "This is a haunted house. You're supposed to be scared."

"Your job is to scare other people, not your friends." Matthew laughs.

"Don't act like you weren't going to wet your pants," Christina says. Matthew stops laughing.

"I wasn't and don't go around telling people I was. I don't need to be called Wetpants for the rest of the year."

Christina shakes her head with a smile. I notice her bright eyes shift between me and Tris. Tris notices too because she lets go quickly and folds her arms across her chest and takes a few steps closer to Christina. That means she takes those steps away from me.

Whatever excitement exploded in my chest when we held hands earlier is gone. It is replaced by a heavy weight. It presses down I have to take deeper breaths in order to breathe. Disappointment rises through my stomach and stops at the base of my throat.

I knew it was too good to be true. How could she ever like a guy like me?


	10. The Haunted House

Chapter Ten

Monday, October 31st

School lasts the same amount of time as it usually does. The party/haunted house will take place after school. That disappointed me when I was informed of this. The least the teachers do is let everyone who is participating in the haunted house is let us out twenty minutes early.

All the guys crowd around in the bathroom to change into a plain white T-shirt and whatever pants we chose to bring. I just grabbed a pair of jeans. I don't care which ones et fake blood on them. If it doesn't wash out then that's too bad and they will go to a different use like helping Dad work in the car or painting or whatever.

Mom may not be pleased to arrive back from her and Dad's anniversary vacation to see I "ruined a perfectly good pair of jeans," but the whole point is that Mom and Dad are not in Chicago.

As the time draws near for everyone to get situated in our rooms, I exit the bathroom and walk casually to room 136, which does not have any students in it at the moment. Tris arrives a minute or two after I do. Her face is smeared with fake blood and her clothes are practically soaked in the stuff too. I just splattered myself with a handful of it. I smile when she enters the room, but I always do, so what else is new?

"Ready?" I whisper. She nods, smiling in return. She slightly bites her lip and it is the most adorable thing I have ever seen. Now is not the time to think about her light-inducing smile. I need to focus. On the haunted house.

Yeah like that's going to happen.

Tris lays down on one of the tables and waits for the students to walk through the room. I have an advantage since I get to keep my eyes open the whole time and stand at the back of the room, so I'll know when the kids come by.

As the other students are let into the room-once being told that they need to be quiet and respectful going through the rooms because it is rude to wake sleeping creatures-I try not to smile, for many reasons. One, I would not be scary if I was laughing. Two, Tris has the most beautiful smile ever. She is the main reason I space out in class or why I sit at the table with what my mom describes as a look of nothing while doing homework and asks if I need help, not that she is good at math anyway.

Anyway... I need to focus on what I'm doing. Tris jerks into a seated position and screams resulting in a group of juniors shrieking out of pure terror. They mutter anxiously to each other as they continue through the labyrinth we created with the desks.

While I'm not jumping out at them, I stand in the back with a fake noose around my neck. It's not right and it hangs loosely from the ceiling, but I decide to sway slightly to freak them out even more.

Okay, I think to myself, just keep this up until Christina comes in to get us.

I have no idea how long I am "hanging around." I chuckle to myself. I am more than likely the only person who finds my dark humor funny.

Huh. I wonder if I would look more sinister if I was smiling...

By the time I decide to keep my face as neutral as possible, Chris comes in to retrieve us. She tells us that was the last group and we are to go to the bathroom and wash our makeup and blood off. I nod to her though I don't know if she sees since the room is so dark.

Tris sits up slowly and angles her body to see what I did to make the kids scream so loudly. I hadn't actually decided what I was going to do until this morning. When she sees me, she stumbles getting off the table, like I shocked her with my methods of terrorizing people. It takes her a moment to see that I am not actually hanging and the rope is not at all choking me. She blinks and exhales what I can only imagine is a sigh of relief. If we had reversed roles I would be more than terrified to see her like this.

"Great job," she says. "You look awful." I laugh. "No, I mean you look great, but-"

"I understand. Great job, Tris!"

I remove the rope from around my neck and toss it over my shoulder. It swings wildly, only slowing down each time it hits my back until the swinging comes to a complete stop.

"Thanks. You too."

Together we walk out of the dark room, only following the light of the lone flashlight. I manage to get to the door before she does even though she's closer. I open the door for her since it's polite, but also because I really like her and will do pretty much anything to tip the crush scale in in my direction.

She smiles and walks out of the room. I step out behind her and lean against the wall of lockers casually. Do I look cool? Do I look like James Dean? Probably a scary James Dean, but...

I stand like this as long as my back can take the dial on the locker digging into my back. When it becomes too uncomfortable I have to straighten up. moment later he straightens up. I wouldn't want the dial on a locker digging into my back either. Would it hurt him? He looks like the kind of guy that has a nice back. But I wouldn't know. I will never know.

"Great job kids." We look down the hall to find Mr. Eaton walking our way with a smile. "When you're done cleaning yourselves up, will you put the room back the way it was?"

"Of course," I say.

Mr. Eaton congratulates us again and slaps me on the back. I wince at the pain. Mr. Eaton is really strong. Damn. I hope those rumors aren't true.

I cross the hallway once Mr. Eaton has turned to the corner. I lean in close to whisper to Tris, "he is surprisingly strong." A concerned look crosses her face for a moment before we briefly part ways to wipe the fake blood from our faces. When we're clean, we go back inside to tidy up the room.

"Any plans for tonight?" Tris asks as she turns off the flashlight and puts it in the box. I finish taking the ghosts down as I respond.

"No, I'll just be home alone."

"Why?"

"My parents are in Hawaii for an anniversary vacation, so I am home alone."

"You can come to my house!" I am so surprised by her offer I spin a little too quickly and nearly miss the box I mean to toss the sheet in.

"I don't know if your parents would like me staying at your house until Thursday. They might get a wrong impression of me." Probably wouldn't even let me in the door. I wouldn't let some weird guy stay at my house for almost a week just because he's friends with my daughter.

"Well, at least come to my house for dinner."

"Thank you, Tris, for the offer, but I'll be okay."

"What are you having for dinner tonight?" I am embarrassed to admit my plans for tonight, but I tell her.

"Ice cream," I mumble.

"Really. We'd love to have you for dinner. It's not a big deal. Please."

I am about to kindly decline the invitation, but she cuts me off. "Humor me." I have to look at her for a while to catch the seriousness in her eyes before I finally smile and give in.

"All right. Thank you."

"Any time."

Tris and I fix up the room nicely before heading out. By the time we get outside, it is dark. We walk carefully across the street and down the sidewalks even though I manage to trip over nothing.

We talk about how we think the haunted house went as we walk to her house. When we arrive, Tris stops and looks at her watch.

"Stay here for a second," she says. I nod and she walks up the walkway to the front door. She sticks her key in and turns it and then the butterflies return.


	11. Meeting the Family

**I'll be updating more since it's too hot to go outside. It's 102 Fahrenheit/38 celsius right now...**

Chapter Eleven

Tris sticks her head inside the door. I wonder what she's saying. I mean, I can hear what she's saying, but I wonder what the other half of the conversation is.

"It was great," she says. "Can I have a friend over for dinner?"

There are so many different responses her parents could have. I almost hope they say no since I am completely underprepared for the situation. The last time I had dinner with a friend was when me, Will, and Christina had spent the day together and went out for dinner. Obviously this is in no way the same thing, and I am one hundred percent not ready for it. Especially because it's _her_ family.

I hear the door click and it snaps me back into the real world. Tris is smiling and practically skips down the walk to meet me.

"Let's go." I follow her up the porch, but I place my hand gently on her shoulder to stop her before she can turn the knob to open the front door. She stops and faces me. Her eyes are bright with excitement and shine in the night.

"I've never met your parents, or your brother." I attempt to keep my voice in a whisper. I can even hear the specks of anxiety mixed in. I scan her expression for any signs of doubt. Maybe she realizes that this is not the best way for me to meet her family.

Her effortless smile sparkles too and it staggers my breathing.

"Everything will be fine," she says. "Don't worry. There's no need to be nervous." She stands on the porch with me until I can muster a shy smile and a nod.

We walk inside the toasty house and I am greeted by the inviting aroma of lavender. It swirls in the air with Tris's natural scent of sandalwood. It relaxes me and intensifies my anxiety at the same time.

Tris's mom stands in the living room, in front of the couch. Caleb is walking down the stairs and shoots a quick wink in our direction. I know he can't be winking at me, that would just be awkward. Mr. Prior must be doing something in the kitchen.

I let my attention shift back to Tris's mom who is pleasantly smiling. Her hands are clasped in front of her in a very professional manner. She eyes Tris for a brief moment before her gaze shifts back to me then returns to her daughter.

Tris clears her throat quickly and introduces her family to me as they appear in the family room.

"These are my parents and my brother," she says nodding in the general direction of each of them. "This is my friend Al." Tris's mom, definitely the most approachable, comes forward to shake my hand. My anxiety spikes in that two seconds and before I can allow it to settle down, her father comes forward as well.

"It's nice to meet you, Al," Mrs. Prior says.

"It's nice to meet you too, Mrs. Prior."

"You can call me Natalie."

Tris almost falls over backward. She stumbles a bit, but catches herself before toppling over. She grabs onto my arm for support. If she wasn't holding onto me so tightly, I might fall over as well. I don't know how I could have made such cases a good impression in the past couple of minutes. Maybe she can sense my nervousness and feels bad for me.

"Nice to meet you, Al," her father says.

"You too, Mr. Prior." He doesn't offer to let me call him by his first name. I don't blame him. Perhaps Mrs. Prior is just incredibly friendly.

Oh yeah. It will take me long time before I can call her Natalie. It's nothing against her, but I feel awkward with that idea right now.

"Where are your parents?" Caleb asks. He didn't introduce himself, obviously, but that doesn't bother me. I feel like I kind of know him already from what Tris tells me about her brother.

"They're in Hawaii," I tell him, "for an anniversary vacation." Caleb nods and Mr. and Mrs. Prior strike up a conversation about the Big Island. I have never been, myself, but I hear it's beautiful. It eventually evolves into a conversation between the two of them and I turn my attention back to Tris. Like that's hard to do.

A little later on, Mrs. Prior goes to set the table and her husband reenters the kitchen. She also sends Tris a wink. I wonder why. But then Tris let's go of my arm. Her eyes remain on her mother for a while. She raises an eyebrow, but quickly diverts her stare.

"Sorry about my weird family," she says. She keeps her voice level, to inform her family they are acting strangely.

I shake my head and say, "I like your family. They're nice. You're right, there's nothing for me to worry about." She smiles again, glancing down at our feet. I didn't notice how close we are truly standing. She doesn't either because she takes a few steps back. I ignore the small, throbbing ache in my chest.

"My parents are weirder than this," I continue.

"Maybe I can meet them sometime."

The ache disappears and is replaced by a smile. "They'd really like you." _Especially my dad. He'd adore you._ Tris grins back and I can feel the thump-thump of my heart in my chest. I can hear it in my ears. I wonder if she can.

"Beatrice, Al," Mes. Prior calls from the dining room. Tris slowly backs out of the room backwards, still facing me. I follow her. She turns around quick enough to avoid a collision with Caleb. He laughs it off though as she apologizes.

In the dining room the five places are set. Tris's family is "intricately" (is this the right word? _Oh yeah,_ _that's the part to focus on you idiot_ ) sitting across from the two of us. I can tell that while Mrs. Prior may not _ship_ her daughter with her weirdo friend, she doesn't seem opposed to the idea. I can tell when I'm being shipped. It happened once in eighth grade. A girl in my class said she shipped me and Julia Forsythe. I felt extremely awkward, we'll both of us did. Anyway... I digress.

"So, Al," Tris's dad says, finishing his bite of chicken parmesan, "tell us about yourself." I clear my throat.

"Well, I was born and raised in Chicago. I'm an only child. I like reading and writing. I'm a straight A student. My favorite classes are creative writing and biology, and I was thinking about environmental policy as a major."

That's good right? That's enough information? I'm not used to talking about myself, but her parents look thoroughly impressed, so that's a good sign.

Over dinner the five of us talk about school, mostly. What we're learning, how our classes are going, what assignments we have, any future projects, and subjects like that.

After dinner we all help clean up. I don't stay much longer after that. I thank the Priors for having me for dinner and Tris walks me to the door.

"See you tomorrow," I say.

Her weight shifts so she leans against the doorframe. "Yeah, see you tomorrow." I walk down the steps and down the walkway and take a left down the street.

I stop at the end of the street, a smile touching my lips. She invited me over for dinner and I met her family. I didn't have to text her first, or call, or anything! Take that Dad!


	12. Asking the Real Questions

Chapter Twelve

Finally the bell rings for math to end. I nearly fell asleep. The only thing keeping me awake was the thought of what I am abput to do. I'm not sure it's smart, or necessarily good for my anxiety, but I'm going to do it because I want to. Even though it terrifies me. So maybe I shouldn't. But I'm not actually doing it, I'm leading up to it. So it's okay? Right? That's what I'm going to tell myself.

And no matter how things turn out, I'm not going to tell my dad. Ever.

My nerves shoot adrenaline through me and I practically run to the cafeteria, as if I'm expecting her to be there waiting for me. Of course she's not. I'm the first one at our table again. I sit down because there's no use in me standing. I fidget with my sleeves and my leg taps anxiously. Everyone files in and then Tris and Susan walk in, coming from psychology. Three different conversations are going on around me as Tris takes out an apple and observes everyone else today.

Lynn fills Will in on what he missed from volunteering for the haunted house yesterday, Marlene and Christina make plans to go shopping this weekend, and Uriah and Susan chatter about some upcoming test. When Tris smiles at me today, I try to get every muscle I have to to smile back, but I just can't. It is ironic isn't it? I like her so much I can't help but smile when she's around, but I'm too nervous to do this _one_ thing and I can't even smile at her.

I realize now my thoughts didn't even make that much sense. It must be the nerves. Okay. I'm just gonna do it.

"Tris, can I talk to you for a moment?" I ask. She agrees and stands up. She reaches down for her bag. "It won't take long." She lightly shrugs and sets her bag down again. She takes another bite of her apple and follows me out of the cafeteria.

For a while I don't say anything. We just walk down the crowded hallways.

"What's on your mind?" she says.

 _Just do it! You'll be fine. Everything will be fine. Hopefully._

"I need your advice on something, I don't know what to do." Tris stops in mid-step and stares at me with wide eyes. "It's not serious or anything. Sorry. I need to stop starting conversations this way. It tends to freak people out." Her shoulders relax and her eyes return to their regular size.

"What's on your mind?" she reiterates.

"This friend of mine," I start. "Ryder, well, he has a crush on this girl in his c-chemistry class." I almost blew it. I almost said creative writing. "This girl, Penny, is a real catch. She's really well-liked and she's smart and funny and sweet. He's really into her. Every time I see him all he does is play "Love Story." He can't get her out of his head."

I don't see how that's a problem," she says. "That's great."

"He wants to ask her out, but he's afraid she might not like him in the same way. They're friends if that helps."

 _I hope I'm not being too obvious._

"I'm not good at giving dating advice, but I'll give it a go. How much does he like her?"

"All he does is think about her. He doesn't stop talking about her, his family and friends are annoyed by how much he talks about her. They encourage him to ask her out, but he's a really shy guy."

 _Oh yeah. Waaayy to obvious._

"I think-now this is just me-but I think if he likes her that much, he should do it. If his love for her is stronger than his fear of being rejected than he should absolutely go for it."

"He has anxiety," I add quickly, my heart racing as we speak.

"Oh. That complicates things. How long have they been friends?"

"Um..." Don't give it away. "Not too long."

"So there isn't much to lose. They can't be close enough to ruin the friendship if they haven't been friends for very long."

"I think they're very close friends," I say. "But that's just me. From my observations. Not that I'm extremely well-aware. They go to a different school. Ryder and Penny."

 _Way to go._

A look of overwhelm glosses over her eyes for a moment. Great. Now I'm stressing her out. This was a bad idea. Horrible, really. It's fine. We'll be friends forever. Maybe my crush will fade. I mean, it's only been two months. I have nothing to gain, so...

"Well, I think it's back to if he really likes her and his feelings override his fear. Sure, it must be nerve wracking to ask someone out, but how else are you going to do it?" Shades of my father. He'd like her a lot.

"He wants to do it in the easiest way possible."

"The only way she would say yes, is if he asks her face-to-face. It's impersonal to text or email or something like that." So that's out...

"No, he plans on asking her in person, if he was going to, but my friend gets nervous easily."

Tris pauses to think for a moment by the water... thing. The blue tubs that dispense water. Water dispenser is probably what I'm looking for. I'll have to google it later.

"That's hard," she says. "If it were me, I would want it to be as thoughtful as possible. So maybe I should retract my earlier statement. It could be over text, as long as your friend is being sincere, which it sounds like he is." Oh, he is, and he's thrilled to hear texting is okay. This eases my nerves for a while.

Tris has stopped talking. She smiles at me though and this time I can smile back.

"I'm listening," I tell her. A tiny blush speckles her cheeks and spreads a bit across her face.

"Um... Then he shouldn't have a problem."

Tris and I retain our eye contact for a while.

"That's good to know," I say. I cough and give her a short smile. "Another question: they're our age, do you think they're too young to date?"

"If it seems okay with her parents and they're both ready, I think it will be okay."

"She's kind of shy too, what is the best way to ask out a shy person?" She shrugs.

"I've never been asked for a date before." I raise an eyebrow and smirk teasingly. I know she's telling the truth, but I just can't believe it.

"That cannot be true."

"Actually no it's not. I was asked out once in eighth grade and I said no. I kind of had a kindergarten boyfriend, but that hardly counts." There's a small pinprick of pain in my chest and I lose my ability to breathe for a second. Am I really getting jealous of a kindergarten boyfriend? I'm sure hasn't seen him in years. And he lives in Milwaukee, I can assume.

What if they're still dating?

No. She would have said something. Right?

"You did?" I keep my smile bright, amused, so she doesn't suspect any jealousy. "How did he ask you out?"

She smacks my arm, hard too, and says, "Don't be sexist. I asked him to be my boyfriend." Now I can feel myself blush. Good job, idiot.

"Sorry, you're right. You are very dauntless." She laughs.

"Not half as dauntless as my younger go-get-em personality would have you believe."

That makes me smile, genuinely. She's adorable. "That's adorable. I'll just have to show up to your house and ask Natalie about this ex of yours." She rolls her eyes.

"That's really strange. I mean, she never asks my friends to call her by her first name until they've known each other for years. Sometimes not even then."

Jokingly, I raise an eyebrow seductively. "I feel very special then." She chuckles and we walk back to the cafeteria quietly. We walk slowly, I don't know if that's a subconscious thing, to make our time together last longer, or not. We walk close together too. Only a couple inches between us.

I stop by the large double doors and turns to look at her once more. "Thank you for the advice," I say. "I'll pass it along to Ryan. I mean Ryder. I have a friend named Ryan too." She chuckles and walks through the door I hold open for her.

The rest of lunch is like a regular day. We talk and exchange comments on random topics. When lunch ends, Tris, Uriah, and I head off to gym.

Gym is just as horrendous as ever. We have to play floor hockey. Luckily I have Uriah on my team. He's going to be the star of the team since we have the, not 'weaker' kids, but those of us who aren't crazy about gym.

I try to watch Tris whenever I can, just to see how she's doing. I notice one girl, who I have never seen before now for some reason, in a fit of rage for being so displeased for how her team was doing, picks up the puck and slams it into the goal. She missed though. Either way it's a penalty and she doesn't get the point, but she hits Tris's wrist instead. Now, it either doesn't hurt as bad as I think it would, or Tris has a great poker face. She looks more angry than injured.

When class ends, I try to wait for her before we head back to the locker rooms, but she must be putting the sticks away for the rest of her asshole team. She manages to catch up right before she turns off for her locker room and we go downstairs to ours. She explains what happened to Uriah when he asks about her forming bruise.

"I'll take you to the nurse," I say.

"I should be fine, but thanks."

After we change back into our normal clothes, I wait for her outside the girls' locker room. She looks surprised, but smiles anyway. She smiles a lot around me. That has to be a good sign. She probably just thinks I'm nice, which I am.

"Can I walk you to the library then?"

"Okay."

I don't know what has overcome me, but I have been so intoxicated by her, that I just hold her hand as we walk down the hall. I have poor circulation, I explain quickly, and therefore my hands are very cold. It does her well. Or her bruise at least.

"I hope your wrist feels better," I say.

"Thank you."

I nod once to Christina with a friendly smile and walk back out to go to my next class. Uriah is waiting outside for me. I thought he went on to psych.

"Smooth," he says. I give him a sassy smirk and go on to English, which of course, I can't concentrate in. We're not doing anything interesting, just more reading circle stuff. At least it's the last class of the day. And then I can go home, not do my homework, read Clockwork Prince, eat dinner, and freak out over my homework in the morning. Type Me cycle.

I am completely out of sorts today. First holding her hand after gym and then when I get home I snap. I know my parents are trying to throw themselves into my life to look out for me and learn about their nearly reclusive son, but I am not in the mood right now.

"How was school?" Mom asks.

"Fine," I say, as I have for the past fifteen years. Or ten, however long I've been in school.

"How's Beatrice?" Dad asks with a smile.

"Can you stop asking me about Tris?" I snap. "I need to do things on my own, if _ever_ , if I want it to work out. Alright?"

"Albert Christian!" Mom exclaims. I hate it when she uses my middle name. I hate it when she uses my whole first name.

"He's right," Dad says, relenting.

"You do not speak to your father that way," Mom continues.

"I'm sorry," I say. I truly mean it, but because I'm still annoyed it comes out a lot harsher than I want.

"I'm sorry too," Dad says. "I shouldn't _constantly_ talk about it. There are other things we can talk about. Anything you want. I meant to ask how the haunted house went."

He's going too easy on me. I deserve to be yelled at. I shouldn't snap at my parents that way. Mom was always the punishment enforcer when I was a kid. I learned quickly not to break the rules because it bothered me how much my behavior bothered her. Everytime she yelled at me I would run up to my room and lock myself in until I could calm down and not feel so disgusted with myself for making her mad.

"It was fine," I mumble.

Any anger Mom harbored has disappeared. Her eyes look sad and the corners of her mouth turn down.

"I didn't mean to upset you Champ," Dad says. I try to ignore the champ.

"It's okay. I'm sorry I snapped at you."

"I would be a little concerned if you hadn't. All kids lash out at some point. Adults too. We're all human. We just have to remember that whenever we don't get our way." I nod and start up the stairs to my room. At the top, I turn around and the whispering between my parents stop. They look up at me with those hopeful eyes that felt they've needed to give me since that one doctor's visit. The one that begs me to stay.

"To answer your question," I say to Dad. "She's good. I was thinking about asking her out sometime."


	13. The Plan and the Problem

**Sorry that it's been so long! College is taking over my time. I'll try to update again soon. Also, sorry this chapter is so short. I'm planning on the next one being longer.**

 **Love you guys!**

Chapter Thirteen

After last night's episode, I could tell my parents were excited that I was getting into "normal teen activities" instead of staying home all the time binge watching ER. It's not my fault, though, that it's so addicting. Though sooner or later I'll run out of seasons and have to get more, money permitting.

Mom and Dad tried to hold back their enthusiasm about my plans. They didn't talk about for the rest of the night. Okay, well, they didn't talk to _me_ about it for the rest of the night.

I flip through the book I'm supposed to read for class, but I can't concentrate. Even the simple idea of asking her out makes my heart pound in my ears. I end up skimming the book and hope I do well on my quiz tomorrow. I'm sure I'll be okay. Maybe. Hopefully.

I hear Mom say something to Dad in the other room.

"He's actually going to do it?"

"I don't know, he might once he works up the courage. It's a scary thing asking someone out. It's a whole process," Dad says.

"I hope he does," Mom says. "I want him to be happy and she seems to make him." I smile to myself. She does.

"It's better for him to see his friends than sit at home all day," Dad says. I take offense to that! Carter and Carol are my friends!

"He may be a bit too young to start dating though." So it's my parents I need to worry about, not Tris'?

"I think sixteen is pretty standard now. Didn't you have a boyfriend when you were sixteen?"

I try not to laugh at the harshness in Mom's voice. "No. I didn't." I close my book and shove it into my bag.

On our way to school this morning, Mom interrogates me about my plans to ask out Tris.

"I don't even know if I'm going to," I tell her.

"Oh. Well, it's your decision." I swear she says that to guilt me into doing things her way. I don't know how she does it. Yes, it's my decision, and I should make it on my own. But the way she says _your_ is like she's trying to scare me into being dependant on her thoughts.

"Thanks Mom."

I should get Will to drive to me school from now on. Or get my own car.

Mom idles by the walkway in the front of the school. She wishes me a good day and I wish her the same and jump out of the car before she can say anything else to embarrass me.

Tris is one of the first people I see when I walk into the entrance hallway. I only notice her because Caleb is the first person I see. I couldn't miss him if I tried, he's probably as tall as I am, or taller, perhaps. He's too busy to notice me, but Tris does. I smile and walk over to her. I don't mind Caleb, but I'm glad he walked away.

"Good morning, Tris," I say. "How are you?"

"I'm doing well. How are you?" she says, returning the smile.

"I'm fine. How's your wrist? Is it any better?"

She takes her hand out from her pocket, slowly. It's an... interesting color combination of yellow and green. And by interesting I mean totally gross. Poor Tris.

"It kind of hurts," she says, "but the nurse said it was only a bruise. I didn't fracture it." I don't want to hurt her by touching her wrist, and I don't know if she wants me to anyway, so I just observe the sickly colors splotched on her skin.

"I'm glad you're not seriously injured." I look up in time to see her smile again, and I can't help but do it back. She certainly has that effect on me. Really, she has that effect on a lot of people, she just doesn't know it.

"Aww," a voice croons. I internally sigh. I am not in the mood for this. "You two are adorable." I would rather have dad call me champ in place of my name for the rest of my life if I could avoid Peter. That's how much I hate him.

"Goodbye Peter," Tris says. I can hear the strain in her voice, the reluctance. I know exactly what she's thinking just by looking in her eyes. She's just as done as I am and she hasn't known Peter half as long. He has _that_ effect on people.

"No, really." Tris sighs and rolls her eyes. I know things will get ugly if this continues. I honestly don't care if Peter gets the crap beat out of him, in fact I might even like to see it go viral on YouTube, but I will not be the one to punch him. My fear is that she will do it and then get suspended or expelled.

I take her shoulders and try to turn her away from the scene, get her to walk to class. She won't punch him, and better yet, he won't antagonize her in front of Ms. Matthews. If I could just get her to- "You two would make a cute couple. You could make it as losers," Peter says.

I feel Tris's hand squeeze mine tightly. I squeeze hers back, but only to stop her from attacking Peter. Though the expression on Peter's face tells me we're playing right into his game. No, Tris and I are not dating, unfortunately, but this is what Peter's going to tell the whole school. No, wait, that's not a bad rumor.

Snap out of it! Focus.

I lean down close to whisper to Tris. "He's trying to get to you. Peter's the kind of person who picks fights with others and then blames them for starting it. Try not to let him bother you. Winter break is coming up next month and then we'll be Peter free for two weeks." She nods robotically.

"Fine," Peter says, "I'll leave you alone. One more thing." We wait for him to resume, but he waits for us to respond. We don't. We remain silent. "Use birth control. Don't make the same mistake as your parents."

Heat bubbles in my cheeks, but I will not fight him. I wrap my arms Tris's waist, holding her back. She squirms a bit, but I keep my hold on her until Peter has disappeared completely from sight.

"Tris," I say calmly. "Stop." She continues to struggle as hard as possible, but I am stronger. I let go of her waist with one arm and lead her outside. The tardy bell will ring soon, but I don't care about being late and I'd much rather her be late than be suspended.

"Stop," I repeat. "You can skip class just once. Do you really think you can walk in there and not punch Peter? Because Ms. Matthews will get you into more trouble for physical fights than she will for you missing one class."

I let go of her and she sprints to the double doors.

"Stay." And to my surprise she does. The bell rings and her hand is wrapped around the door handle. She takes a deep breath, exhales, and lets go. She sluggishly walks back towards me and into my arms. I give her a loose hug.

"Aren't you upset?" She mutters through clenched teeth. She probably doesn't actually mutter it, but her words are muffled by my shirt.

"I try not to be," I say. "All Peter wants is a reaction. By showing him that you're angry, you're giving him what he wants. I've learned to ignore him."

"I'm surprised you didn't punch him." I chuckle softly.

"I don't like violence. I wouldn't punch him even when I want to."

"Like now?" She squeezes me tighter, so I pull her a bit closer.

"Yeah," I say quietly. "Like now."


	14. How to Ask Out a Girl

**Happy (early) Thanksgiving to those who celebrate, Happy (early) Thursday to those who don't!**

 **Also, thank you for helping me with this chapter since I have never been on either side of this situation ;)**

Chapter Fourteen

"How was school?" Mom asks as I drop my backpack by the door.

I'm not really in the mood to tell her that the bullying has not gotten any easier, so I tell her, "It was fine."

"What did you learn?" She eyes me suspiciously, the way she always does when she suspects that I'm lying.

I shrug, but that's not convincing enough. If I want her to believe me, I have to take it farther, add detail to make it believable. But there honestly wasn't much I learned today. She just asks me this to prove I'm not falling asleep in class, which I am barely successful at. The only classes I'm not likely to fall asleep in are creative writing and PE, and since I didn't have either of those classes today...

"Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell," I say. I mean it as a joke but she buys it. Everyone knows that fact. That's the only thing anyone ever remembers from school for some reason even though not many people benefit from it.

I walk into the kitchen and grab an apple and sit down on the couch, trying to avoid my mother's eye. She is very good at knowing when I lie. Sometimes I can fool her, but those occasions are rare. I've had to practice. Although, I'm a good kid, I don't sneak out to go drinking with my friends. I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, I get... okay grades. She should learn to trust me more.

 _Huh. Says me after she left me alone for a week with no supervision._

That's another thing, I don't throw wild parties. Mostly because I have like ten people I hang out with and I'm broke. So no wild parties for me.

"Any homework?" Mom asks.

 _It's not something I can't BS my way through ten minutes before class._

"No," I say, trying to mask my lie by biting into the apple. It will help if my voice inflection is off.

"How are your friends?" I shrug again.

"Fine." Mom walks from the kitchen, her heels clicking on the tile floor, taking an abrupt halt when they touch the carpet, and takes a seat next to me on the couch.

"Anything new with them?" I shake my head, blinking a few times. "What about Beatrice?"

I half expect my dad to pop out of nowhere, peering around the corner going, "Beatrice? We're talking about Beatrice?" His obsessiveness with this is getting to be just as annoying as the champs.

"She's fine, too." Mom puts her hand on my shoulder and smiles.

"You'll make a good decision." Then she stands up and walks back into to the kitchen.

"What?" I say, looking over my shoulder. "What do you mean by that?" She smiles and takes out a pot from the cabinet above the stove.

 _What am-? What? What am I supposed to do? What am I going to do good on? Is that some reverse psychology or something? Is she trying to trick me into doing my homework because I can do it later, no big deal. It's second semester we should all worry about. My grades are always better first semester than second._

I try to refocus on my apple and the bird outside I see in the tree trying to find a dry branch to land on, to no avail, but I am interrupted by the sound of the front door opening and Dad shaking out his umbrella and Mom telling him to do that outside so as not to ruin the hardwood floors.

"You should lock the front door when you come in," Dad says.

"All right," I say, my words getting mumbled by the apple. Dad chuckles and hangs his jacket in the closet. He walks into the kitchen and gives Mom a quick kiss on the cheek, mutters something, and walks upstairs.

 _Should I?_ It's the only time with Mom not around to do it, and she would freak out if I did it in front of her, not necessarily a bad 'freak out' but I'm not risking it. Sighing, I stand and make a brief stop in the kitchen to dispose of the apple core before taking the stairs two at a time and finding myself in the hallway outside my parents' bedroom.

Should I really?

Before I can think further on the matter, Dad walks out in a dry shirt and jumps back at my sudden presence.

"You're so quiet," he says. I ignore his comment. By walking up here, I guess that means I will be doing this.

"Can I talk to you alone for a sec?" Dad's thick eyebrows pull together for a second before he relaxes completely and backtracks into the bedroom. He sits on the edge of the nicely made bed and pats the side on his left. I walk in and sit down, keeping my eyes on the ground.

"What's on your mind?" Dad says.

"I need your help." My voice is soft, I clear my throat, but I that doesn't do much. "I..." My voice trails off.

"Take your time."

I take a deep breath, focus my eyes on the freckle of green crayon on the wall, and let it go. "I want to ask Tris out on a date." I look up to see my dad's expression. His eyes are bright, his smile wide. He claps me on the back, a little too harshly, but not as hard as Mr. Eaton.

"I was wondering when this day would come." I raise an eyebrow. "I-" He stops suddenly. "That's great. Let me know if you need anything." I smile a bit. I see he's been talking to Mom about this. Maybe that's why she told me I'll make a good decision. It _is_ regarding Tris, so...

"I don't know how," I say. "How did you ask out Mom?"

"Well, we met in college," he starts. "We had the same English Composition class. One day she came to class late and the only available seat was next to me."

I shake my head. "Cliche," I say. Dad laughs.

"So she sat down. We never really talked before then, because like you, I thought she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen-"

"You think I'm the most beautiful woman you've ever seen?" I tease. I touch my hand over my heart. "I'm flattered."

"You know what I mean, you think Beatrice is gorgeous. Now quit interrupting, wise ass," he jokes back, smiling. "Anyway... I was too nervous to talk to her. And, honestly, I knew nothing about her except her name. I took out a piece of paper, wrote it down, and slid it over to her. I'm surprised she could read that scribbled piece of garbage I dare call handwriting. Your mom still hates it." I smirk. She does. She complains about it all the time. That's why she makes out the checks.

"Then Professor I-Forget-His-Last-Name asked us to read it out loud." I bite my lip. I feel the secondhand embarrassment blush coming on. "I always hated that teacher. No matter, she didn't look nervous, probably because she was still trying to decipher what I wrote. I have the writing of a six year old boy. So I read it out to her and the whole class was silent. I told the teacher, 'That's all I wrote.' But everyone was waiting for her response.

"She looked at me, her eyes wide, and my heart was racing. Asking someone out takes a lot of guts, guts I didn't have in front of the whole class. I am also a terrible public speaker, unfortunately you got that from me." I take offense to that, even though it's true. "But she looked at me and said, 'Sure.'"

I wait for him to continue, but he doesn't.

"That's it?"

"Yep."

I should've asked Will.

"I know that's not helpful," Dad says, taking out his phone. "Maybe... this will help..." After rapidly tapping on the screen, he taps on a website link. I try to catch what it is but he scrolls down so quickly I only catch half the title. I got, "Ask out a girl."

"All right," Dad says. "Let's see. Write it down. Oh, no. We just surmised how badly that can go. I do not recommend that for you. Write it on a shirt."

"Hell no," I say. Dad chuckles.

"Okay, moving on. Call her on the phone... no. Say it with music." Dad and I look at each other with raised eyebrows. He continues reading, " _Try burning her a CD-but only do this if you know her well enough to know what kind of music she likes! Burn her a CD with some of her favorite songs that make you think of her. Then for a surprise: record yourself asking her out._ " I scoff.

"Get her a talking teddy bear." I shake my head. "Bake her a sweet treat." Ha ha. "Get her flowers, sing it-"

"Definitely not!"

"Write it in chalk, make a crossword puzzle, balloon bouquet, light some candles, treasure hunt, or a spy game." He clicks off his phone and looks at me.

"I'd rather sink and drown and die," I say.

"Don't worry. You will find the perfect way to ask her out. It takes times. I was a bit too hasty. Don't be like me." I don't know why, but that makes me laugh.

"I, uh..." The heat burns my face. I don't know if I should admit this or not. "I tried to get her to tell me how to ask her out."

He stares at me for a while, trying to understand what I'm saying. From downstairs, Mom calls us for dinner.

"What?" he says to me. I explain the whole Ryder/Penny thing. I thought I was being slick when I came up with that, but looking back, I am mortified.

"Well, that's one way." He laughs a bit nervously. "That's a story to tell the kids, huh?" I blush and look away, getting up to go downstairs.

"I'll figure something out. Thanks."

I can hear my dad laughing from the dining room.


	15. Openly Admiring

**Twivergent1: *Flashback to your last comment* I was hoping someone would catch on! Me too! It's such a great album. I can't get over.**

Chapter Fifteen

After a quick shower I get ready to leave. Mom says that I am early today and I tell her I plan on walking to school. She takes a while to respond, but just says 'Okay. Have a good day. I love you.'

"Love you too," I say.

"Um..." I turn back to look at Mom. "Why do you want to walk. It's a cold November day."

"I like fresh air. Haven't gotten a lot of it." And I turn to leave before she can ask me anything else. I mean, it is true that I haven't gotten fresh air lately, but I would like the time to think about my options and I can't really do that if she's yapping at me in the car about how weird her coworkers are. Linda would rather get locked overnight in a Macy's than go to work, Kristie is excited about her new online boyfriend, Ben is still a strange little man who drinks weird shit like strawberry and kale smoothies.

I try to focus.

I could just ask her. _Hey, Tris, do you want to go out sometime?_ Or _Do you want have dinner at_ my _house?_ Oh... No, not that. _Do you want to see a movie with me?_ But she could take that to be in a platonic way.

This is not working out. I let out a sigh, my breath visualizing quickly before floating away in the wind.

I don't bother trying to come up with any other ideas in the last few blocks before I get to school. Maybe this was a bad idea. I want to, but the real question is if I am able to. I highly doubt it, but I'll embarrass myself trying anyway. Maybe. Yes, I will. Well- No! Yes I will! Damn it.

By the time I get to creative writing, I have fought myself back and forth at least three dozen times. Do I want to? Yes. Do I think I can do it? Not particularly. Will I do it anyway? Perhaps. I give up trying to figure it out as I open the door letting the warm air envelope me as I walk into the classroom.

The few minutes before class Tris and I talk about our morning, but as soon as the bell rings Ms. Reyes has us take out our journals.

"I want you to write about a specific person," she says. Easy enough. I'm ready for it. "I want you to write about this person you admire in great detail." She walks over to the white board and twists off the cap to the nearly dried out brown marker and writes out four parts on the board. Halfway through she has to switch to blue. While she writes I try to decipher what she wants us to talk about.

1\. Personality

1a. Strengths

1b. Weaknesses

2\. Physical description (age included)

3\. Happy memory with that person

4\. Things you want to remember about that person

"I think it would be nice," Ms. Reyes says, "to look back on this journal entry in twenty years from now and remember this person exactly how they are now. If you keep in touch with this person and you're still close, you can see how your relationship has grown, or maybe if you're not close in the future, you can see how you've grown as a person and how your life has developed. Of course this person you admire does not have to be living. If that's the case, this can be something to look back on to remind you of them."

I don't have that many options. My parents, my grandmother (the one who exercises on the daily), friends... It honestly depends if we're going to share this or not. If we are, I know exactly who I will not write about, but since Ms. Reyes does not tell us this is how we'll end class, I think I might be safe. For now.

I tap my pen-cap side down-on the paper a few times, considering what to write. And then I think, don't think, just write.

 _Quiet. Nice. Funny. Fun. Scary. I guess I should probably expand right? Okay. You're quiet. I like that about you. You don't throw yourself into the spotlight, in fact you like to be behind it. As far away from it as possible. It's a calming sensation compared to so many others who are rowdy and even inconsiderate towards others preferences of silence. I'm quiet too so I don't mean that in a bad way._

 _Nice. You went out of your way to help me. You were in no way obligated to, but you did. Whether it was because you wanted me to spend more time with you or because you didn't want to risk me getting diabetes by eating ice cream and candy all Halloween and then puking my guts up. Or somewhere in between. Or maybe none of the above. It was very nice of you to invite me over to dinner. I will admit I was intimidated at first, the whole night actually, but it was worth missing the whole disc of ER._

 _Funny. One of the first things you did when we met was make me laugh. You do that frequently. You don't even have to try, you just are funny. Sometimes I don't even know if what you said was humorous, maybe it was your inflection, your expression, or the context, but you never fail to bring a smile to my face. I marvel at that talent. It's a difficult one to accomplish with me, but you mastered it. And maybe it's selfish of me, but I don't want that feeling to go away. I want you to make me smile._

 _Fun. Around you I can be myself. I don't feel like I have to stay in my own lane (wow, that was a dumb way to say that). I mean, I don't feel like I have to shut up and watch everyone else have fun in a discussion, I can actually participate. I love talking about books with you. (Sidenote: look her up on Goodreads)_

 _Scary. You're not an intimidating person. But everytime I look at you, I feel those butterflies. Everytime you laugh, I laugh. Whenever you blush, I smile. Like I said before you never fail to make me smile. As Dad said, no one has made me feel this way. As I have told myself, no one has made me smile as much as you have. It's the influence you have over me, that's what's scary._

 _Strengths? Do I have time to list them all? You're so brave. And kind. And smart. And just so amazing, my brain wants to explode when I try to understand just how wonderful you are. It's like an overload. I can't process it all._

 _Weaknesses? I can't think of actually maybe one. Your aggression. Especially against Peter. Your willingness to do something, whatever it may be. Punch him, taunt him right back... that's going to get you into some trouble. Of course I will do my best to protect you. (Wow! That sounds so romantically cheesy. Good Lord I'm not Peeta Mellark-not that he's a bad guy. Sorry if it sounded like I was doubting you Peeta. #TeamPeeta2kForever)_

 _Everything about you is inviting, of course counting your warm personality, but even if you're not speaking you make me gravitate toward you. Your blonde hair looks really soft, like you use some great conditioner (that sounds creepy, sorry). Your skin is soft (this is NOT a Buffalo Bill thing, I did get to hold your hand once). Wow, I just can't describe your physical appearance without sounding like some murderous stalker. The last thing I'm going to say about your appearance is your eyes. They sparkle like an outdoor pool (oh, good going idiot). They twinkle like stars-much better. Before meeting you, I didn't have an opinion about the color, but since you walked into the cafeteria I had no doubt what my new favorite color would be._

 _Again, do I have time to describe my favorite memories with you? I have to choose just one? That's not fair. Writing one, or even a few, down will do my memories no justice in the future. I don't have the words to describe how I felt the first time we touched, the first time you smiled at me, how fast my heart ran in my chest the first time you sat down next to me. The butterflies I get when you say my name. These are things I can't forget either. The way we can talk about books we have common and be respectful of the other's opinion. The way you cared enough about me to invite me to dinner. The way you make me feel when I see you everyday. The way you make me feel like my worthless life is actually worth living._

Ms. Reyes calls time. I look up at the clock on the closest wall. We have been writing for thirty minutes. Next to me, Tris has already put her pencil down.

I quickly decide to add a footnote.

 _If you ever read this Ms. Reyes, I am not writing about you. Sorry if there was any confusion or concern in the beginning._

Time runs out for the kids Ms. Reyes told could finish quickly and she asks us to share in our table groups something, like a section, of what we wrote. Or if it's too personal, we can share who it's about. I let out the held breath. Good. I couldn't dare tell Tris I wrote about her.

"Who did you write about?" she asks.

"Um. My mom," I say. First name that pops out of my mouth. That works. Good.

"Hey, me too!"

I have the slightest of feelings she's lying, the way she fidgets with the hem of her shirt. And for a moment, I can't help but hope that she wrote about me, too.


End file.
